Lesson: Home Country

[english grammar man]

Country = Nation, eg: Egypt, Papua New Guinea, Japan, etc.

Some students tend to replace "hometown" with "country".

CORRECT => I'm going back to my hometown for Christmas.
CORRECT => I'm going home to see my family this Easter.

When describing rural areas, we say "in" with "country" or "countryside". We don't usually use "country" as an adjective (exceptions: country music, country club). So we say,

- He's from Kansas. It is a very rural area.
- Tony is in the country. (meaning Tony is not in the city, but in the countryside at the moment)

Hometown

We use "hometown" as an object. Eg: I visited my hometown.

When talking about our place of birth, we usually just say "from". Eg: I'm from Sydney.

"Hometown" is not really a very common word in English, yet used frequently in Japan.