(The) Government(s)

Posted by Pak Guru on March 20th, 2016 | 0 comments | IELTS, Part 3, pemerintah, speaking, Task 2, vocabulary, writing

Government must work hard to tackle the problem of inflation.

There are more communicative uses of the word government:

1. Government (without ‘the’, without ‘s’)
2. Governments (with ‘s’)
3. The government (with ‘the’, without ‘s’)

1. Government (without ‘the’, without ‘s’)

Here you are talking about the abstract concept of government, which means the phenomenon whereby an elected minority govern the majority:

• Government is a potentially effective tool to tackle the problem of unemployment.

2. Governments (without ‘the’, with ‘s’)

Here you are talking about all governments, in all countries, everywhere:

• Governments must work hard to tackle the problem of inflation if they want to be competitive in the global market.

3. The government (with ‘the’, without ‘s’)

Here you are usually talking about your government, although you may be talking about a different but specific government that you have already mentioned elsewhere in your text:

• The government must work hard to tackle the problem of inflation in Indonesia.

 Note to Indonesians..
Next time you want to translate pemerintah, consider which of these three meanings you want to communicate. If you choose the right one, your meaning will be clear and you will receive a high score for vocabulary (Lexical resource – LR) and a high score for coherence and cohesion (CC),  because it will be easier to understand what you are saying or writing.

Browse the IELTS public band descriptors.