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a tale of two elephants.

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In order to get at the idea
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of this thing called the article.
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We'll explain what that is after I tell you about
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the elephant and an elephant.
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Now articles are words like "a" or "an" or "the".
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Articles are a kind of adjective,
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some people would call them a determiner,
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that help you figure out how important something is.
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Or how specific something is.
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So, articles.
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What articles do is they tell you whether
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or not something is specific.
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Are you thinking about any old elephant
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when you talk about an elephant,
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or are you thinking about one elephant in particular?
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The elephant.
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And this is the difference.
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When we're talking about the elephant
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we're talking about a specific elephant.
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We have particular one in mind.
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This what's called the definite.
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Because it defines what we're talking about.
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You know, this elephant could be the queen of the elephants.
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Sometimes, when we make sentences
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we want to aim for that kind of precision.
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We want to be precise.
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We want to know exactly what we're talking
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and who we're talking about and why.
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That's a case where you would use the word "the".
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Now if you're not being specific.
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If you're talking about any old elephant.
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An elephant that you're not especially familiar with.
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An elephant you haven't introduced before.
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You would say "an" elephant,
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because it's not specific...
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and it's undefined.
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So, grammarians call that an indefinite article.
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When you know who and what you are talking about
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for sure you say "the".
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And when you're not sure, you say "a" or "an".
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So if you knew you were talking about a specific elephant.
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Say for example the queen of the elephants.
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The queen.
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As indicated by her royal crown, you would say "the".
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And if you were talking about any old elephant?
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You'd say "an". You'd use the indefinite article.
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We'll cover this more later.
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I just wanted to give you an introduction
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to the idea of what an article is.
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So "the" for specific, "a" or "an" for nonspecific.
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You can learn anything, David out.
basic idea that divides the usage
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of "the" from "a" and "an".
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"The" is the definite article,
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and "a" or "an" is the indefinite.
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So when you're being non-specific
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in language,
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you would use
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the indefinite article
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as in,
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"May I have
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an orange?"
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Cause it doesn't matter
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which orange you're asking for,
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you don't care,
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it's any orange,
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as opposed to if you wanted
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the orange.
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This usage is much more specific,
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and it seems to indicate that there is only
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one orange.
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You see the orange in particular that you want,
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you're identifying it,
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you're asking for it.
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That's what this definite usage is.
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Something that's interesting about
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the word "the"
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is that it can be used for both singular
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and plural nouns.
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So it's both singular and plural.
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So you could say
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"May I have the orange?"
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You could also say
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"May I have the oranges?"
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And "a" and "an" does not really allow this,
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it is only singular.
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So you can't say
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"May I have an oranges?"
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This is not standard.
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What you'd probably say instead is
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"May I have some oranges?"
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So this is not standard,
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does not work in standard American English.
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The other thing about "a" or "an"
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is that it's "a" or "an".
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The indefinite article changes
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depending on the vowel sound
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that comes after it.
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So changes for vowel sounds.
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Now what does that mean?
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Well it means that if you know
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that word that you're going to say next
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like ah or ooh or eh or uh or ee,
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then you're gonna change it to "an".
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So it's the difference between saying
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"A box,"
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and
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"An apple."
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What we don't say
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in standard American English
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is "a apple."
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It's not as easy on the mouth, frankly,
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it takes a little bit more effort.
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And any linguist will tell you
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that the way languages develop
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is that they reward laziness.
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So we say "a box"
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but we say "an apple."
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Something a little weird though,
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you want to make sure
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that you're looking for vowel sounds
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not just for vowels.
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Because some vowels,
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for example,
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the letter U
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don't always produce "ooh" sounds.
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Sometimes if they're at the beginning of a word,
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like in word union,
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so if you say "a union,"
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that produces a "yuh" sound,
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and "yuh" is technically a consonant sound.
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That's not a vowel.
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But there are certainly cases like
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"An underwater boat,"
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where the letter U does produce
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an "ooh" or an "uh" sound,
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and that's a vowel.
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So if you're gonna start the word
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with a vowel sound,
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what you wanna do is choose
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"an" instead of "a"
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but just be careful of the letter U for example.
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So to recap,
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"the" is the definite article.
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You can use it for both singular and plural usage.
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"May I have the orange?"
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"May I have the oranges?"
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"A" or "an" is indefinite
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and it's only singular,
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so you can say
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"May I have an orange?"
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or
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"May I have some oranges?"
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Before a vowel sound,
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"a" changes to "an"
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so you say "a box,"
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but "an apple".
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Not "a apple."
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You say "a union,"
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but "an underwater boat."
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You can learn anything.
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David out.
English - Default