Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[christina_nguyen]

I came to my friend's house to study and I want to thank her for providing the place. How do I say it in a nice way?

Thanks for your answer

[dragn]

[christina_nguyen]

Hi Greg

First of all, thank you for replying. Secondly, I noticed that in the formal situation, you used the word "home", and in the informal, used "house". Is there a reason why you chose one and not the other?

[CP]

A house is a building where people may live. A home is a place where someone lives and feels he or she belongs. They both can mean the place where you live, but home feels more special, more personal. House is more descriptive of a single building, a residence.

Real estate agents in the U.S. like to advertise places for sale by calling them homes, invoking the warm, fuzzy feeling of one's own place, but really what they are selling is just houses, houses that might be home to someone else at the moment or in the recent past, but still just buildings to live in. If you buy one and you feel you really belong there, it becomes your home. You might buy it and never feel comfortable there, because somewhere else is home to you.

Your home could be a tiny flat in Hong Kong or a gigantic ranch house in Texas or a simple wooden building in Ohio. It could be the place where you were born and where your parents still live, even if you are living far away at the moment, working or going to school.

Does that help?
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