Ilene Springer
Professional Teacher
Learning Article : “A”, “An” And “The” : Learn How To Use English Articles

Discuss the Article : “A”, “An” And “The” : Learn How To Use English Articles

<a href='/article/9/a-an-and-the-learn-how-to-use-english-articles' target='_blank'>“A”, “An” And “The” : Learn How To Use English Articles</a>

What’s so bad about leaving out the article? There are some mistakes that native speakers of English can “forgive” (not consider such a big deal, say it’s OK), such as the occasional wrong verb tense, the mispronunciation of a word or the wrong word in a sentence. But, when native English speakers hear the absence of the necessary articles (“a”, “an” or “the”) before nouns, they often think to themselves, “Wow, this person really can’t speak English.”

Apr 2, 2014 12:00 AM
Comments · 37
4

Some languages without articles do sometimee distinguish between definite and indefinite nouns when it comes to word order.

Ex.

"我吃苹果了" could be translated as both "I ate an apple" and "I ate the apple", but "苹果我吃了" (ie. The subject is at the beginning of the sentence) can only be "I ate the apple".

I was also taught that 把 can only be used to move a verb when the noun is definite eg. In "我把苹果吃了", "苹果" can only be "the apple". 

 

In Slavic languages, where word order is very flexible, people (apparently) tend to move definite nouns towards the beginnings of sentences and indefinite nouns towards the ends.

Ex.

I don't think there's a technical difference between "Jabuku jedem" and "Jedem jabuku", except "jabuku" is more likely to be "the apple" in the former and "an apple" in the latter.

 

That's what I've been taught anyway. What do native speakers of those languages think of this?

 

Alexander, those words are articles to me anyway, even if they might technically not be to grammarians.  'Any' and 'some' are indefinite articles with different emphasis, 'this' and 'that' are definite articles indicating direction, 'no' indicates an instance of the noun doesn't exist (it's neither definite or indefinite) etc.

April 2, 2014
2

Thank you for this useful article about articles. They are my big issue too. There is one hint that helps me to remember the difference between a (an) and the articles. If you can say ONE before a noun you want to use - go with  "a", if you can say THIS (these) - go with "the". For example:

1. I'm eating (one) an apple.

2. I'm eating (this) the apple.

I hope this hint will be helpful to all non native English speakers.

 

July 19, 2015
2

I think you've overstated the importance of articles here.  Leaving out articles usually has a fairly minor impact on the meaning of a sentence.  I don't want people learning English to get the wrong idea.  If you leave out an article, or use the wrong article, most people will NOT think that you are horrible at speaking English.  If you say, "I was attack by dog on a way to work today," every native English speaker will understand your meaning.  Mastery of articles will certainly make you sound more fluent, but don't be afriad that native English speakers will think you have no skill in English if you misuse or forget an article.  

April 8, 2014
1

Thanks, Maa, for the list. I hope it helps some Russian speakers--Ilene Springer

May 16, 2014
1

Hi Ilene,

I just want to point out that you mentioned articles need to be used every time, but you are forgetting that we often leave them off in the case of speaking in general terms.  We do not say "the gold is precious" for example.  We would use no article at all.  "Gold is precious."  We would also say, "I like bananas and strawberries."  It would sound incorrect to use "the" in this case.  Now, "the strawberries that you gave me" is fine, but it's specific.  In the previousl example we are talking in general.

 

You also did not mention the difference between "a few/ few" and "a little/ little" and there is a big difference there.  This is a difficult concept that may be a distinction not found in some languages.  This is why non-native speakers find articles so difficult. 

April 15, 2014
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