What are Articles?Articles are used to modify a noun. There are three different articles in English: “A”, “An” and “The”. They can be divided into two categories, Definite article and Indefinite article. Definite Article and Indefinite Article? Examples:1. I bought a toy car from the shopping mall.2. The toy car belongs to my brother. In sentence 1, “a toy car” refers to any toy car that are being sold in the shopping mall, and I bought one of them.However, in sentence 2, “the toy car” refers to the particular toy car that belongs to my brother, there is no other toy cars. “A paper boat is sailing on a water.” ✗“A paper boat is sailing on the water.” ✓ As “water” is an uncountable noun, we cannot use “a” as the article. “I bought a bottle of water.” ✓“You should drink a cup of water after you wake up in the morning.” ✓ How should we choose between using “A” or “An”? No articles?Sometimes, an article should not be applied.For example:1. Talking about a noun in general. In the above sentences, both “apple”, “animals” and “electronic gadgets” are referring to a group of nouns in general, instead of s particular noun. 2. Before proper nouns.Examples:- Name of countries Exceptions: “The Netherlands”, “The United States of America”, “The Philippines”, “The Dominican Republic”, “The Czech Republic”. - Name of cities or towns - Name of mountains, lakes, islands etc. Exceptions: A ranges of mountains, lakes or islands.“The Himalaya mountains”, “The Andes”, “The Rockies”.“The” should be applied before nouns like rivers, oceans, forests, deserts and seas.Examples: “The Pacific Ocean”, “The Nile”, “The Sahara desert”, “The Black Forest”, “The Iberian Peninsula” etc. - Name of languages and subjects Exceptions: Referring to a group of people/ the population of certain countries.“The Japanese are known for their politeness.”“I have travelled to Taiwan few years ago, the Taiwanese are very nice.” - Name of sports These tutorial materials are written by TutorMove's Five Star Tutors.Only allow for personal learning and tutoring purposes.TutorMove © All rights reserved.For more English grammar tutorials, please visit: Tutormove tutorial board
