‘Next week’ or ‘the next week’?

Learners of English often struggle with time expressions containing the words next and last, so when talking about something that will happen sljedeći tjedan, they might say The next week we are launching special Christmas offers. Likewise, when talking about prošla godina, they would produce a sentence like The last year our turnover was ₤15m.

If you are one of these learners and you do not understand why these sentences are incorrect, the following rules and examples might help you to learn when to use the article the with next and last, and when not to.