first VS. the first | WordReference Forums

first VS. the first

J

Jingjing Tan

Senior Member
Chinese
Hi, everybody!
I have some troubles with 'first' and 'the first. Could you please give me a hand?

Let's say, some children are competing to build houses with building-blocks. A little girl is the first one to finish the house, can she say 'I'm first' or 'I'm the first'? In my opinion, 'I'm first' is wrong grammatically, but I was told it was correct, which really bugs me.:confused:
 
    • Both are correct. First can be a noun or adjective, so you can say 'I am first' in the same way that you can say 'I am clever', and you can say 'I am the first' in the same way you can say 'I am the winner'.
     
    natkretep said:
    Both are correct. First can be a noun or adjective, so you can say 'I am first' in the same way that you can say 'I am clever', and you can say 'I am the first' in the same way you can say 'I am the winner'.
    Click to expand...
    Thank you, natkretep, for your great help!:)
    One more question:
    Can I say "I'm third" and "I'm fourth, fifth..." without "the"? Do they sound natural to your native ears?
     
    Yes, it works with the other cardinal numbers too. And you can say, 'I'm last' too.
     
    While natkretep is correct in saying that both are correct, most people would say "I'm first" rather than "I'm the first."

    When using "I'm the first" one would usually complete the sentence by telling what they are the first at:

    "I'm the first one to finish building a house."
     
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