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Students and a teacher are doing language related exercises. There are 3 of them. The first two have been done and the teacher wants to inform that there is another one because the students seem not to notice it. Would it be correct for the teacher to say:

There is the next exercise. it should mean "The next exercise exists". I don't mean that the teacher is pointing at it.

I know that "there is the" is a difficult piece of grammar.

user1425
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    "[Don't forget that] there is another exercise" would be more idiomatic. – Kate Bunting Aug 29 '23 at 08:13
  • But what if one wants to use the word NEXT? Or maybe it should be "There is a next exercise"? – user1425 Aug 29 '23 at 08:19
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    Using next seems to me to imply that the students do know that there is another one. However, if the intention is to hurry them along so that all three exercises can be done in the time available, the teacher might say something like "Shall we go on to the next exercise now?" – Kate Bunting Aug 29 '23 at 08:32
  • Of course, it's a good option, but the point of the question is to sort things out with "there is the next+something". – user1425 Aug 29 '23 at 08:39
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    I'm trying to explain that there is the next exercise is a valid utterance but not particularly idiomatic. – Kate Bunting Aug 29 '23 at 08:54
  • OK, is this also possible "There is A next exercise"? – user1425 Aug 29 '23 at 09:00
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    Again, much less natural than there is another exercise. – Kate Bunting Aug 29 '23 at 09:06
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    What @KateBunting said. But realistically, even There is another exercise is relatively unlikely in the exact context. If the students don't [necessarily] know there's another exercise, I think the teacher would be much more likely to say There's [still] one more* exercise, because There is another exercise* tends to suggest We could do / could have done a different* exercise* (perhaps we still will do it, or perhaps that was a "now-past" option that we didn't take). – FumbleFingers Aug 29 '23 at 12:39
  • "There is the next exercise" doesn't really make much sense in this context. It's not ungrammatical, it's just unnatural and not something a native English speaker would say in the context you described. Perhaps try "There is a final exercise to be done". Since it's the final one, it's obvious from context that it is next in the sequence which is to be done. – Billy Kerr Aug 29 '23 at 15:54

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