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!
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ESL teacher here.
‘The’ is English’s definite article.
That means we use it to refer to defined, specific things. Generally speaking we have to know which thing we’re talking about.
Usually we usually use the indefinite article, a or an, the first time we mention something and then we can use the because we’ve defined which.
For example; I saw a dog this morning. The dog was very fat.
Some nouns alway take the definite article, usually because there’s only one of them, so they’re already defined.
The sun.
The moon.
The internet.
Other words never take it, I think because they inherently refer to the speaker’s specific one.
Home.
School.
Bed.
Obviously we can still use the with these nouns but only to refer to a specific one that isn’t ours.
The school around the corner.
The bed in the guest room.
Home is an exception, we usually use house instead.
As for nightclub. You would either say “I’m in a nightclub.”
If the speaker isn’t expected to know which nightclub, or “I’m in the nightclub.” If the speaker knows which nightclub.
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