If you're trying to learn English Articles you will find some useful resources including a course about Definite and Indefinite Articles... to help you with your English grammar. Try to concentrate on the lesson and notice the pattern that occurs each time the word changes its place. Also don't forget to check the rest of our other lessons listed on Learn English. Enjoy the rest of the lesson!
Learning the English Articles is very important because its structure is used in every day conversation. The more you practice the subject, the closer you get to mastering the English language. But first we need to know what the role of Articles is in the structure of the grammar in English.
English articles are words that combine with a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. Generally articles specify the grammatical definiteness of the noun. Examples are "the, a, and an".
Articles in English are easy to use than in many other languages, they are: "a (or an)" and "the", the first one is indefinite article, the second one is definite article.
As mentioned earlier "a (or an)" are indefinite articles, they are used when referring to something not known to the person you're talking to, or something not mentioned before in the same discussion: I have an apple and a banana. We use "an" with words starting with these vowel (a, e, i, o, u), and "a" with the rest, note that sometimes we need to use "a" even if a word start with "u", like university for example, we used "a" because it is pronounced like "youniversity", so it's as if this word starts with "y" and not "u". Also the word "honest" should go with "an" even if it starts with "h", because we pronounce it as "onest" which starts with "o". So we say: a university, and an honest man.
The indefinite article “a” and “an” can also be used with professions: he is a teacher. (his job is a teacher).
You use the definite article "the" when the thing you're talking about was already mentioned before: Once upon a time, there was a prince and a princess, the prince was 22 years old, and the princess was 19. There are some other times when you use "the", but you don't have to worry about them right now.
Sometimes you don't need to use an article at all, especially when talking about general terms: life is beautiful (it's not common to say the life is beautiful), people are generally nice. Also no article is used when talking about countries... Note that countries containing "states, kingdom, and republic" need articles:
Here are some examples:
As you can see from the example above, the structure of the Articles in English has a logical pattern. Locate the Articles above and see how it works with the rest of the sentence in English.
The indefinite article in English is 'n which means a or an. This is never capitalised and when it occurs at the beginning of a sentence the first letter of the next word is turned into a capital instead. The definite article in English is die and is used where in English we use the.
List of Articles in English
Below is a list of vocabulary where you can use the Definite and Indefinite Articles in English. Try to practice but also memorizing this table will help you add very useful and important words to your English vocabulary.
Definite and Indefinite Articles have a very important role in English, therefore they need very special attention. Once you're done with English Articles, you might want to check the rest of our English lessons here: Learn English. Don't forget to bookmark this page.