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REFERENCE

the following day

fixed phr..
A2 Elementary Oxford

fixed phr.. the day after a specific day you are talking about. You use this when telling a story about the past or future.

fixed phr.. a temporal deictic expression used to refer to the day immediately succeeding a previously mentioned reference point, typically in reported speech or narrative past.


SIMPLE

We arrived on Monday and left the following day.

CONTEXTUAL

The doctor gave him some medicine and told him to call back the following day if he felt worse.

COMPLEX

Although the initial results were promising, the research team discovered a significant error in the data the following day, forcing a complete restart.

Usage

usually functions as an adverbial of time; it is more formal than 'the next day'.

Teaching tip

teach this alongside reported speech rules where 'tomorrow' shifts to 'the following day' or 'the next day' to maintain the correct time reference.

Pitfall

We will meet the following day.We will meet tomorrow.use 'tomorrow' when speaking relative to today; 'the following day' is for stories or past events.

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