I decided to make sure that I know this important difference between American and British English, so I wrote what I have found out so far and I would be grateful to anyone who reads this and tells me whether I am wrong, or not.
In British English when people say to hospital or in hospital when talking about somebody being there as a patient they don't use the definite article : "I had to go to hospital", "She spent two weeks in hospital". And the meaning is that somebody was there as a patient.
If then for some other reasons British English speakers will use the definite article which will change the meaning itself, I noticed that, in American English, native speakers often use the the and if they need to show that somebody is in church to pray, in school as a student, in hospital as a patient, in prison as a prisoner, they use 'in' and not 'at'. Do American English speakers use 'at' like British English speakers use 'the' to give the sentences a different meaning?
Are my sentences correct? Do they show American English usage?
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He is in the school. (enrolled as a student)
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He is at the school. (for some different reasons)
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He is in the hospital. (as a patient)
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He is at the hospital. (visiting somebody)
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He is in the church. (to pray)
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He is at the church. (for some different reasons)
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He is in the university. (as a student)
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He is at the university. (not as a student)
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He is in the college. (as a student)
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He is at the college. (Not as a student)
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He is in the prison. (as a prisoner)
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He is at the prison. (not as a prisoner)
Best Answer
AmEng speakers do NOT use definite articles all the time; whether we do or not depends on what we want to say, and how we want to sound saying it. In particular, the use of the definite article with the present tense of the verb "to be" depends (in the words of a famous American) on what your definition of "is" is. Several of your example sentences sound distinctly unnatural to my USAite ear. Here are my suggestions based on my own usage:
School:
Hospital:
He is in hospital. - He's an inpatient. This is valid, but not usual American usage. Anglophiles (Americans who like to drop Briticisms into their speech to appear more sophisticated) will sometimes use this.
He is in the hospital. - He's an inpatient.
He is at hospital. - We don't say this.
He is at the hospital. - He might be an outpatient, or he might work there; either way, he's there right now.
Church:
He is in church. - Services are in progress right now, and he's there.
He is at church. - Interchangeable with "in church".
He is in the church. - He's inside the building; no information is conveyed about what he's doing there (he might be polishing the floor, for example.)
He is at the church. - He's on the church grounds, not necessarily inside the sanctuary.
University/ College:
He is in university. - Americans don't usually say "in university"; "in college", however, means that he's a student.
He is enrolled in university. - He's a student.
He is at university. - He's a student. This is much more common than "in university", for some reason.
He is in the university. - Again, we don't say this.
He is at the university. - The university is a local landmark and he's there now. (Who is he - student, professor, tourist? Not enough information.)
Prison:
He is in prison. - He's a prisoner.
He is at prison. - We don't say this.
He is in the prison. - He's inside the building. He might be a prisoner, a warden, a visitor...
He is at the prison. - He's on the grounds, not necessarily inside the building - he might be waiting in the car while his wife visits her brother.