student asking question

Do British people tend to use the term "house" instead of "dormitory"?

teacher

Native speaker’s answer

Rebecca

In Harry Potter, Hogwarts follows a "house system." As you guessed, this is common in England and the rest of the UK (and sometimes in America and Commonwealth countries like Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and so on). It cannot be categorized as just a dormitory system. Students are divided in subunits (houses) when they start school. Houses compete with each other in sports, academics, and other events. Typical dormitory systems won't really create the feelings of group loyalty and competition that you find with the house system. Thus, it is not quite appropriate to equate to "house" to just meaning "dormitory/dorm." You can assume that they are not substitutes for each other and actually represent different systems.

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