My son and I were in the car.

He wanted to go to the library to return the books.

"You haven't finished reading the books."

"You haven't finished reading these books."

I told him.

The books were at home.

As the context above, I should use "the" or "these"?

  • 1
    If the books were at home, 'those' could be used IMO. – dan Oct 22 '17 at 0:44
  • "the books" could also be used to refer to the books in question, that is, to the ones parent and child knew were in the process of being read. – Gustavson Oct 22 '17 at 1:03

It should be either

"the books [you are talking about]"


"those books [that you left at home],"

but it would not be "these books" unless you mean

"these books [that you're talking about],"

which I don't think is what you mean.

Your Answer

