Well, tell them that home is more than just a location.
“I am House.” - Some TV doctor
Some people called Romans, they go the house?
Romanes eunt domus!
You’re thinking in terms of location, rather than state-of-being. “I’m home” is your status.
“I’m driving, I am bored, I’m safe, I am away”… None of those sound weird, do they? This, combined with the more technical grammar rules others have commented…
I can be at home, but it’s not until I’m in comfy pants, on the couch, with a drink in hand that I’m home
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Home is the adjective. It’s a state of being.
Many times I’ll walk in the door but need to log into work, and I’ll say to my wife “I’m not home yet”. As in, my external responsibilities are not completed and I am not available. When I’m available to my family or to relax, I have then become “home”.
Edit: I meant adverb. It modified the state of being. Like being “away”.
In this usage, “home” is an adverb / adverbial! It is a preposition being used adverbially.
I’m going in. I’m going home.
Send it out. Send it home.
Run away! Run home!
Your instincts are right in that English as a second language is tricksy and annoying. The “I’m home” thing never occured to me, but there’s plenty of stumbling blocks. They’re, their, and there. Idioms like “piece of cake”. It’s a long list. Not the hardest of all languages to learn, but it is confusing in places.
When was the meeting where we decided not to say “I’m post office” because I use that phrase daily?
I used to be pre office. I still am, but now I’m post office too.
I’M A BUS.
I read that it in Ralph Wiggums voice.
Hi, home! I’m dad.
Solid.
Liquid.
Colloidal.
Emulsion.
I am away?
Also “going to 'ospitol”
No, the way people say it makes it obvious that it’s a set phrase. Like in Japanese they say “tadaima” and people reply “okaeri” and you just know that it’s a thing and don’t question it much. It’s until much later when people point it out that you go, ohh yeahhh.
It helps when you realize that home is an adverb in English.
Ah. You’re talking to a math grad.
For me it always just felt very close to “I am here” / “I am done” / “I am late” / “I am fine” — not as description of a place but state.
All the quirks, weirdnesses and exceptions are the best / most fun parts of any language. Close second, how it constantly evolves and where the words originated from.
This is it exactly. “I am at home” describes your location. “I am home” describes your current state.
I had to explain to a friend recently why
“I’m at Steve’s house”
Was fine but
“I’m in Steve’s house”
Was weird. Like, get out of there before you get arrested.
I would sure appreciate that explanation. Like I broadly get that ‘at’ implies you are present with the person’s knowledge while ‘in’ implies you are there without their knowledge but I would like an explanation of why the meanings are implied as such
I’m at Steve’s house.
I’m in Steve’s backyard.
I’m at Steve’s backyard barbecue.
Yeah, English is pretty f’d up.
Nah, this kinda does make sense. You wouldn’t wanna be inside Steve’s barbecue, would you?
That reminds me that my sixth grade teacher was adamant that 'I am going over Steve’s house" meant that one was visiting the house, not flying over it.
I like learning french because it shows me how weird the connections to english are.
“Chez Steve” means “At Steve’s [place]”. This one is more verbose in english.
But you can say “chez moi” for “at home”. And no need to specify which home.
How many homes do you have?
That’s exactly my point.
Can’t speak of other languages, but in German anyway the sentence is exactly the same. “Ich bin zuhause” meaning word-for-word “I am home”. Same issue, normally a location would have a preposition and an article. Reasoning is also the same as in english, “home” and “zuhause” are not a location but a state in this case.
Yes, “home” and “zuhause” mean the same thing but they aren’t exactly the same, zuhause is a compound word. English also has compound words, for example “aboard” and “abed”. The English word isn’t “ahouse”; it is simply “home”.
“Ahouse” sounds so much like an actual archaic word, but I can’t find evidence it was.
True. I was more going on the idea of OP that it must confuse english learners. I often feel people who only know one language tend to forget that most latin languages tend to have similar quirks, often making such quirks in a foreign language rather natural.
In this case, it’s nothing to do with Latin. German is not a Latin language, and old (pre-Norman) English is closer to German than anything else. It’s the shared Germanic heritage which gives us this quirk.
Absolutely. The fundamental thing about the rules of grammar is that they’re more like guidelines. In fact, I think OP’s example is hardly the most confusing or inconsistent thing in English, which is not to say that the question isn’t a really good one. The quirks, similarities and differences are one thing that makes language-learning really interesting.
