Hospital problems

Good day :)

Well I have a slight problem with these two sentences....

'She in hospital.'
'She in the hospital.'

Which one is correct? I was told one was right and the other was wrong and later being told the other way around.

I feel so stupid not learning English properly and hope I could just at least don't make a fuss with simple sentences like these ones.

Thanks for your Help
Hans - Munchengladbach, Germany/Deutschland

Neither of the sentences in the first post has a verb. So neither one is correct.

British English speakers tend to say ``She is in hospital'' and American English speakers tend to say ``She is in the hospital.'' Both are correct in the mouth of a native speaker.

<<British English speakers tend to say ``She is in hospital'' and American English speakers tend to say ``She is in the hospital.'' Both are correct in the mouth of a native speaker.>>

Right. Both are fine. I say "she is in the hospital" but I've heard British speakers say "she is hospital" and that's fine, too. If it's used naturally by native speakers (even if a specific form is not used by all native speakers...dialectcal variation is natural in human languages), then it's correct, so Hans you're fine in saying either one :)

oops, and of course I meant "I've heard British speakers say 'she is in the hospital'" in my post above.

crap! I keep on typing it wrong...ignore my two previous posts, I'm just gonna do the whole post over. Too bad antimoon doesn't have an edit feature...argh!! Here's my post as I intended:

<<British English speakers tend to say ``She is in hospital'' and American English speakers tend to say ``She is in the hospital.'' Both are correct in the mouth of a native speaker.>>

Right. Both are fine. I say "she is in the hospital" but I've heard British speakers say "she is in hospital" and that's fine, too. If it's used naturally by native speakers (even if a specific form is not used by all native speakers...dialectcal variation is natural in human languages), then it's correct, so Hans you're fine in saying either one :)

Thankyou all for the Information given.. such helpful people I really admire you all here to help me and others understand English better.. thankyou for your time and effort.

Hans

I'm a native Polish speaker, but I've been using English for more than twenty years. Quite recently I had a similar discussion with one of my nieces whose teacher of English tried to explain the semantic difference between the two sentences:

She is in hospital
She is in the hospital

As to me the first sentence means that the person is ill and that is why she is there for treatment. The other sentence means that she is in the hospital (we all know which hospital she is in) to either visit someone there, or to talk to the doctors, or she's gone there because she works there (all depending on the context of the conversation).

Now, for my niece's teacher, the first sentence means that the person is there for medical treatment, or she's gone to work ... the first sentence also means that the person is in a hospital (we don't know which one) while the other sentence means that person is in the specific hospital (we all know which one).
Well, I've checked the grammar books that I used to learn English and I was relieved to find out I was right ... well, my niece went to school and told her teacher that she was wrong in her interpretation (ooops, a bit embarrasing ...) and now we're facing a language problem ....

Please help me in this dispute .... I expect some BrE expert to help me.
Thank you,
Kamila

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ps. Obviously, in American English there is no difference between:
"She's in hospital" and "She's in the hospital" . Both may mean that the person is either at work, visiting someone, or for medical treatment.

Actually, I think Americans tend to use "she's IN the hospital" to mean that she has been admitted as a patient, and "she's AT the hospital" to mean that she is visiting or just in the building itself. We never use "she's in hospital" at all.

Thank you, Uriel -
I'm not an expert on Americal English ... at school I learnt British English...

Anyway, I'm still waiting for a British English expert to help me with this problem :-)

let's sum up what we've got here:

American English:

1. "she is in the hospital" means that:
- she is sick and she is there as a patient

2. "she is at the hospital" means that:
- she is there visiting someone, is in the building itself

Americans never say that "she is in hospital"

British English:

1. "she is in hospital" means that:
- she is sick and she is there as a patient

2. "she is in the (or: at the) hospital" means that:
- she is in the building itself, not to be treated

all comments are welcome

>2. "she is at the hospital" means that:
- she is there visiting someone, is in the building itself <

Well it could also mean 'she is at the hospital for treatment.'

Yes, it can. It's not a hard and fast rule, which is why I had to say "Americans TEND to...".

But it's more likely that people will say that "she's IN the hospital" if it's going to be an extended stay, and "she's AT the hospital" if it's for a more minor issue that's being done on an out-patient basis, or if she is there for some other reason.