A house is a building, usually a separate one, while home is the place where you live and feel you belong: a house, a flat or even a whole city. You can build, buy and sell a house, but home also works on its own as a place and a direction: at home, go home.
home or house — can you pick the right one?
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go/come/get + home; be/stay + at home; buy/rent/build + a house; go to + my/your + house; feel at home
- They sold their old house and moved to a flat near the river.
- I'm working from home today, so call me on my mobile.
- After six months in London, the city finally started to feel like home.
What changed
First versionAfter work I usually go to home and cook dinner.
RevisionAfter work I usually go home and cook dinner.
Go to home appears by analogy with go to work and go to school. But after go, come and get, home already includes the direction, so it needs no preposition: go home. With house the preposition stays: go to my house.
A large building with many flats is not a house but a block of flats, or an apartment building in American English. That's why people say My flat is on the fifth floor, not My house. When inviting someone over, people often say Come to my place: it works for both a house and a flat.
Your turn
I've got a bad cold, so I'm staying at ___ and resting today.
Show the answer
home — Stay at home means to stay in the place where you live. People don't say at house: house needs a word before it, as in at my house, and it refers to the building.
Describe where you live now. Say whether it's a house or a flat and whether it feels like home.
I rent a small flat above a bakery, not a house, but after two years it really feels like home.
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