Next and last or the next and the last?
A student recently said to me ‘I won’t be available for my lesson the next week’. Although my student’s English is of an upper intermediate level, she hadn’t fully understood the difference between ‘next week’ and ‘the next week’. Again, this is an example of a part of speech where if you confuse the two, although you would be understood, it will indicate that you are not a native speaker. So, let’s try to stop that from happening by looking at the difference between ‘next’ and ‘the next’, and between ‘last’ and ‘the last’.
Next / last + time period
When we say, ‘I’ll see you next Friday, week, month, summer, year’, etc., we are referring to the Friday, week, month, summer, year, etc., immediately following the present time. So, ‘I’ll see you next week’ means ‘I’ll see you during the week immediately after the week we are in now’.
In the same way, telling someone that we ‘saw them last Friday, week, month, summer, year’, etc. means that we saw them during the week, month, summer, year, etc., immediately preceding the present time. So, ‘I saw you last week’ means ‘I saw you during the week immediately before the week we are in now’.
The next / last + time period
When we say, ‘I’ll see you during the last week of February’, ‘he was arrested during the last month of his presidency’, or ‘we went to Canada during the last summer of my university course’, etc., we are talking about a different period of time, and not immediately before the present time.
The same thing applies for ‘I saw you during the last week of February’, ‘he wasn’t arrested during that month, but the next month’, and ‘when you graduate, we’ll go to Canada the next month’, we are talking about a different period of time, and not that which immediately comes after the present time.
The next /last time + period just beginning or ending
When we talk about the period immediately preceding or following the present, we do use the article ‘the’ if we are ‘within’ that period, either at its beginning or at its end. Here we usually use the Present Perfect tense to talk about ‘the last week’ and the future tenses to talk about ‘the next week’. For example, when we say that ‘the last week has been very difficult’, we are talking about a period which is still in progress but which we are at the end of. In the same way, when we say that the next month will be fun, we are talking about a period which has already begun.
So, to recap…
For the period immediately after the present time
- ‘I’ll see you the next week!’ – incorrect
- ‘I’ll see you next week!’ – correct
For the period immediately before the present time
- ‘I went to Paris the last month’ – incorrect
- ‘I went to Paris last month’ – correct
For another period, not the period immediately after the present time
- ‘Not during the week of my holiday but week after’ – incorrect
- ‘Not during the week of my holiday but the week after’ – correct
For another period, not the period immediately before the present time
- ‘We went there during last summer of my studies’ – incorrect
- ‘We went there during the last summer of my studies’ – correct
For a period in progress which has nearly finished
- ‘Last year has been a challenge’ – incorrect
- ‘The last year has been a challenge’ – correct
For a period in progress which has just begun
- ‘Next few months is going to be easier’ – incorrect
- ‘The next few months is going to be easier’ – correct
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