Determiners, can sb tell me if this ex is correct, please?

Question

1. Complete the following gaps with a, an, the or nothing (0):

My uncle is …a… shopkeeper. He has………a..…shop in ……a….small village by…the……..River Thames near…………Oxford. ……The… shop sells almost everything from ………. bread to …….. newspapers. It is also ……a……. village post office. ……The……children always stop to buy …an……. ice cream on their way back from ………… school. My uncle doesn’t often leave ……the…. village. He doesn’t have ……a…….. car so he goes by ……….. bus to Oxford and has lunch at ……the……. Grand Hotel . He is ……a…….. happy man.

Thanks a lot! jor

Answer 1

I'm not a native English speaker, but I think it's mostly ok. The only things that are probably wrong are:

• "a village post office" > "the village post office", since I don't think there's more than one.

• "The children" > "Children", since you are talking about children in general.

Thanks!!! - jortosar, Oct 10, 2010

Answer 2

This looks correct to me. Thank you for posting your work!

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EDIT

Billstpor is correct about "a village post office" should be "the village post office" -- I missed this one because where I live, we often have more than one post office in our towns.

Answer 3

"The children" > "Children", since you are talking about children in general.

This one could go either way. I think it sounds better to say "The children" if you are specifically talking about the children of the village.

The generic "children" is not incorrect, it just creates a slightly different nuance.

I agree. However, since the paragraph seems to have some continuity and never refers to the children except in that sentence, and in that sentence there is nothing to specifiy the amount of children who went to the shop, it didn't seem fit to say "the..". - bill1111, Oct 10, 2010