ENGLISH GRAMMAR

“ARTICLES”
Compiled by Liza Rahmawati
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

01 02 03 04

Types of Articles When do we use? When do we use? When we don’t use articles
 The Indefinite articles The indefinite The definite Zero article
“a/an” articles “a/an” article “the”
 The definite article “the”
 Zero article
Articles are words that define a
noun as specific or unspecific.
They are a, an, and the.
Types of Articles

The Indefinite articles “a & an”

It indicates that a noun refers to a general idea
rather than one specific thing.
Example: I want to buy a dress

The definite article “The”

It limits the meaning of a noun to one specific thing.
Example: I want to wear the dress to Tasya’s wedding.

Zero article
It is when we do not need to use articles
Example: I am learning French
 When do we use the indefinite articles “a/an”?
We use the indefinite article “a/an” in front of a noun to:
 Show unspecific singular nouns:
I will buy a gift for my mother

 Show that the person or thing is one of a group:

She is a student of London Road School

 To talk about people’s jobs:

I am an architect
Anne was a musician
 CHOOSING A OR AN?
We use “a” before a consonant sound:
a banana (starts with /b/) a university (starts with /j/)

We use “an” before a vowel sound:

an orange (starts with /o/) an hour (starts with /au/)

*Note that the choice of “a or an” depends on sound, not spelling

 When do we use the definite articles “the”?
1. We use “the” in front of a noun when we believe the listener/reader knows what we are talking
about:
• because there is only one:
The sun is very bright today.
• because there is only one in that context:
Look at the girl standing there (= the girl I am pointing at)
• because we have already mentioned it:
I saw a cat in this street yesterday. The cat was really adorable

2. We use “the” with:

• A superlative adjective:
Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world
• Musical instruments:
Mira plays the guitar really well.
• Mentioning all the things by a noun:
The wolf is not really a dangerous animal. (= Wolves are not really dangerous animals.)
 We don’t use articles (zero article) for…..

 Names of person, country, language, continent:

William Shakespeare wrote Hamlet
My dream is to study in Germany
Mario can speak Japanese
Rich Brian is from Asia

Exception: -Countries which include words like kingdom, states or republic:

The Republic of Indonesia, The United States, The United Kingdom
- Countries which have plural nouns as their names: The Philippines

 Academic subjects and sports:

Mary is good at Math
Zoe likes playing football
THANKS!
You don’t learn to walk by
following rules. You learn by
doing, and by falling over.
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