DEFINITE ARTICLE

the

INDEFINITE ARTICLE

a, an, some

In English there is only one definite article: the. This word does not change for anything; not for gender, not for the plural.

The definite article has no plural form – it is always the.

THE INDEFINITE ARTICLES ‘A’ AND ‘AN’ –

We use the singular ‘a’ generally (in most cases).

We use ‘an’ when the next word begins with a vowel or a silent ‘h’.

Examples using ‘an’ –

an orange, an interesting book, an exhausting journey an hour, an honest answer, an honourable woman.

In the case of ‘a’ and ‘an’ the plural (an indefinite amount) is ‘some’

Examples –

THE DEFINITE ARTICLE ‘THE’

In general, we use ‘the’ in English only when the noun is SPECIFIC.

We do NOT use ‘the’ when the noun is GENERAL.

So we say, for example –

Life is good.

and not ‘The life is good.’  (which would be correct in many languages) because ‘life’ is general in this sentence.

Of course, if you want to be specific you will use ‘the’. For example,

The life of Mahatma Ghandi

The Great Wall of China

The Great Barrier Reef

The Eiffel Tower

Examples:

As a general guide, you should use ‘the’ in cases where you could use ‘this’ ‘that’ ‘those’ although, of course, these words don't mean ‘the’.

In English, if the specific noun is obvious we consider it general. For example:

Next Monday (and not the next Monday)

Last week (and not the last week)

Next April (and not the next April)

Last year (and not the last year)

If you want to be specific about an exact day or date ‘the’ is correct.

For example –

The Tuesday after my birthday.

The year after my graduation.

Perhaps we should call ‘the’ ‘the specific article’ and not ‘the definite article’.

NOTE:

In superlatives we use ‘the’ because ‘the best’ or ‘the biggest’ is specific.

Still following the rules, we can use ‘the’ - or not use ‘the’  - before any noun or adjective depending on how specific we want to be.

Do you intend to refer to something general or something specific?

It depends on what you want to say:  it’s your choice.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

In English ‘a’ and ‘an’ are not the same as the number ‘one’.

If you wish to say ‘one’ as in one, two, three, four. do so.

But if you want to say ‘a’ or ‘an’ you MUST NOT use the number one.

In English there is no confusion between ‘a’ ‘an’ and ‘one’. They are simply different words.

It is a BIG mistake in English to say ‘one’ when you mean ‘a’.

Examples –

It can be correct to use ‘one’ If you wish to clear up a misunderstanding or be emphatic. For instance, you could have the situation where you say

“I have a car.” Your listener doesn’t understand. She thinks you said, “I have three cars.”  She says, “You have three cars?” and you correctly reply, “No, I have one car.”

Change of sound of ‘a’

In a similar case the sound of ‘a’ can change from the regular ‘a of Arsenal’ to

‘a’ of USA (ei).

For example, you say, meaning that someone is an executive of the company,

‘He is a boss of Coca Cola.’ Your listener says,

‘What? He is the boss of Coca Cola?’ and you say,

‘No, he is a (a of USA) boss of Coca Cola’.

You did not mean that he is the big boss of the company.

This so und of ‘a' (ei) is common in journalism, and therefore you often hear it on television or radio. This is because reporters are accustomed to dictating over a telephone or video link and they need to pronounce it ‘ei’ to be very clear.

You should not make this sound a habit because it is not correct regular English.

Have you read our article Strange British Surnames?

You can now hear the correct pronunciation of these names,

and some places, in my video Strange British Surnames on YouTube

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