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Which one is correct, the activity starts next week or starts from next week? And why?

Longman Dictionary has this entry for 'start' in this sense:

intransitive, transitive: to begin happening, or to make something begin happening

It also specifies the usage "starting (from) now/tomorrow/next week, etc," giving the example "You have two hours to complete the test, starting now."

start from

It's also been suggested to me that if I say let's start (from) next Friday, people sometimes could get confused regarding exactly which Friday I'm talking about.

So, it is better to use the following Friday instead of next Friday. Is this the case?

Here are the options:

  1. Let's start next Friday
  2. Let's start from next Friday
  3. Let's start the following Friday
  4. Let's start from the following Friday

Which is best?

Qiulang 邱朗
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1 Answers1

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"Starting" is an activity that typically occurs at a single instant and does not extend over a duration of time. Therefore, the first option would be correct:

the activity starts next week

Your other question has been dealt with already on this site, e.g.: Which day does "next Tuesday" refer to?

MarcInManhattan
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  • Thanks for the link to my second question. But all the answers there didn't say would the adjective following reduce the ambiguity. Will it? – Qiulang 邱朗 Jan 27 '23 at 07:58
  • About my first question I googled it and found someone else asked here https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/start-next-week-or-start-from-next-week.3611668/ and an answer gave the same answer like yours: "In American English, at least, "start" refers to a specific point in time". But could British English have a different story ? – Qiulang 邱朗 Jan 27 '23 at 08:11
  • Regarding "following", it depends. It's really a separate issue, though, so it should be asked in a separate question. Also, ELL would probably be a more appropriate place to ask that kind of question. – MarcInManhattan Jan 27 '23 at 08:20
  • Regarding BrE, there's no difference as far as I know, but I can't say for certain. – MarcInManhattan Jan 27 '23 at 08:21
  • Could you check my update to see why I had this question? It is because I check the longman dictionary. – Qiulang 邱朗 Jan 27 '23 at 08:30
  • Yes, if it's an activity that extends over a length of time you could say "starting from". If you want a specific answer, you should post a specific sentence. Otherwise I'm kind of guessing at what you mean. – MarcInManhattan Jan 27 '23 at 08:43
  • "If you want a specific answer, you should post a specific sentence." actually what I posted in my question was what I want to know, i.e. should I use start or start from? After I saw your answer I googled it again and found the example in longman. – Qiulang 邱朗 Jan 27 '23 at 08:53
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    Longman puts from in brackets, implying that it's optional. You can use either. – Kate Bunting Jan 27 '23 at 09:23
  • And if you want to avoid ambiguity give a date. – Stuart F Jan 27 '23 at 10:53
  • @Kate And there are plenty of examples of including ones from Southwark Council (https://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk ) and Science Direct (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0094576599001599). – Edwin Ashworth Jan 27 '23 at 16:58