Professional Documents
Culture Documents
1. Things in general
You don’t need an article when you talk about things in general.
a. Holidays
b. Geography
Articles are not used before countries, states, cities, towns, continents, single lakes, or
single mountains.
I live in Canada.
I’m going to Europe next month on vacation.
Lake Ontario and Lake Huron are 2 of the Great Lakes.
The Great Lakes are a group of lakes on the border between Canada and the US.
Mt. Fuji is the highest mountain in Japan.
NOTE: There is an exception to every rule in English. The is part of the names of these
countries:
the United States
the Czech Republic
the Philippines
c. Companies
d. Universities
However, if the name of the university begins with University, then you must use the:
I am studying Russian.
I speak French.
In Brazil people speak Portuguese.
I teach people how to speak English.
4. Sports
Sports and other physical activities do not need an article:
6. Acronyms
An acronym is an abbreviation (a short form) of a name. It uses the first letter of each
word to form a new word.
You need to use the before acronyms when the letters are pronounced individually,
not as a word.
the EU
the US
the CIA
the FBI
Note that uncountable nouns take the article the when used in a particular
sense.