Time Reference — This Week, Those Days, These Days — English Grammar Exercises
This book? That one? These shoes or those? 52 exercises on near and far, singular and plural, time and fixed expressions.
Time Reference: How Demonstratives Mark Present and Past
Beyond physical space, English demonstratives encode temporal distance with the same near/far logic. This and these refer to the current or upcoming time period; that and those refer to past periods or moments. This system produces the highly frequent fixed phrases these days (= nowadays), those days (= in the past), this week/morning/evening (current), and that summer/year (a past time both speaker and listener remember). Learner corpus data consistently shows confusion between 'this days' and 'those days' as a fossilized error at B1 level, with 'this days' appearing in contexts that clearly describe the past.
This and These → Present or Near Future
What are you doing this evening?
What are you doing this weekend?
Things are different these days. Everything has changed.
That and Those → Past Periods
In those days, people didn't have smartphones.
She told me about her trip. That was in 2019, I think.
Life was simpler in those days.
Common Mistakes
✗ Those days everyone uses the internet. → ✓ These days everyone uses the internet.
✗ Do you remember this summer in Italy? → ✓ Do you remember that summer in Italy?
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between this, that, these, and those?
The four demonstratives divide along two axes: distance and number. 'This' (singular, near) and 'these' (plural, near) refer to things close to the speaker. 'That' (singular, far) and 'those' (plural, far) refer to things away from the speaker. Near and far can be physical — 'this book in my hand' vs 'that building across the river' — or conceptual, as in time references and back-reference to things already said.
When do you use 'this' vs 'that' on the phone?
On the phone, 'this is...' identifies the caller: 'Hello, this is Sarah speaking.' To ask who the other person is, say 'Is that Maria?' — because the other person is experienced as distant. A common learner error is 'That is Dr. Smith calling', which should be 'This is Dr. Smith calling'. The rule: use 'this' to introduce yourself and 'that' to refer to the person on the other end.
What is the difference between 'these days' and 'those days'?
'These days' refers to the present period: 'These days everyone uses a smartphone.' It is equivalent to 'nowadays'. 'Those days' refers to a past period the speaker is looking back on: 'In those days, people wrote letters.' A common mistake is using 'this days' or 'those days' for a present context — neither is correct.
How do demonstratives work with uncountable and plural-only nouns?
Uncountable nouns (information, luggage, news) are grammatically singular and take 'this' or 'that', never 'these' or 'those'. Plural-only nouns (trousers, scissors, glasses) take 'these' or 'those', never 'this' or 'that'. So: 'this information' (not 'these information'), 'these trousers' (not 'this trousers'), 'that luggage' (not 'those luggage').