why is it that we can structure a sentence like “I’m in school” but not “I’m in nightclub”?

Question

Some nouns have to have “the” before it but seems like not all of them need it, so any explanations would be helpful!

edit: wow, didn’t expect so much traction on this. Thank you for your explanations! Interestingly, I’m actually a native English speaker but don’t really know grammar terminology all that well. Thanks for sharing your knowledge!

In: 1233

Answer 1

It’s idiomatic, and you just learn which to use growing up with English as your language. Linguist can define general rules, but no one learns those rules in elementary school. And British and American forms don’t always agree. Americans would say “I’m in the hospital” while British would say “I’m in hospital.”