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Introduction to articles

Articles—words like the, a, and an—are special adjectives we use to indicate whether a noun is specific or not specific.

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  • male robot hal style avatar for user Jannie Gerber
    I've seen cases where people would say something like "The elephant is a fascinating animal" in stead of "Elephants are fascinating animals." Is this a case of "the" being used as an indefinite article or is it just plain incorrect grammar?
    (24 votes)
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  • male robot hal style avatar for user Aum Singh
    when do you use an or a?
    (5 votes)
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  • aqualine ultimate style avatar for user Marixa Espinoza
    I love gammar
    (12 votes)
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  • duskpin ultimate style avatar for user Harriet Buchanan
    Here's a question for David, our resident grammar expert. I often see written, "an historical", rather than "a historical". A historical would make more sense due to the sounded "h" in historical, and I've read that folks using "an" before historical are mistakenly trying to sound more literate, but that using "an" is actually incorrect.

    Which way is correct? Or is "an historical" something that's just become a correct part of our language simply because so many folks use it?
    (6 votes)
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    • duskpin ultimate style avatar for user David Rheinstrom
      Ha! This is a fight I rehash from time to time with my colleagues on Team history; as a descriptivist, I'm inclined to say a historian or a historical event, since it reflects English as it is spoken. My colleague Steve, however, says an historical event or an historian; this is the pronunciation I usually expect from American Newscaster English.

      However, I think it's needlessly stuffy, and it maintains a pronunciation that isn't reflected in American English, per David Alexander's comment above—since I pronounce the h, I say a historical.
      (9 votes)
  • blobby green style avatar for user OLVIN MARTINEZ
    What grade do I have to pass the classes?
    (6 votes)
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  • leaf green style avatar for user Crowbar Jones
    Just these simple articles have turned out to be one of the most annoying problems for me in many English tests as well as academic writings. I find the distinctions among when to use a/an, when to use the, and when neither of them is needed, are really vague.
    (5 votes)
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    • aqualine ultimate style avatar for user Loaf
      Welcome to the club.

      an for words that begin with a vowel sound: AN umbrella AN apple An integer

      a for words that begin with a consonant sound: A unicycle A cat A piece.

      Neither when the word is plural: The towels, some birdseed, the apples.

      But you could even just say the (object) when you're talking about something specific: Get me THE umbrella: not just any umbrella, but a specific umbrella.




      So yes, it can be hard to understand at first and sometimes really vague, but it you'll get the hang of it once you memorize the rules.
      (2 votes)
  • duskpin ultimate style avatar for user Anabrie
    Couldn't you say, "Another elephant" ? is 'Another' also an article?
    (3 votes)
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  • blobby green style avatar for user MASONW
    does david respond to these comments
    (2 votes)
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  • orange juice squid orange style avatar for user Gabriel Ulaye
    Is it right that a is referring to the noun like for example: a box. And the an is referring to nouns that start with vowels like this: an ant?
    (0 votes)
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    • duskpin ultimate style avatar for user Ketchup!
      Yes it is correct. However, we use a in front of a consonant starting single noun. And an in front of a noun whose first letter sounds like a vowel. For example, we say a university, not an university. The reason is because here u sounds more like “you” not what is sounds like in umbrella. The example you gave is correct
      (5 votes)
  • winston default style avatar for user Muhammad Saad
    Will 'an' come before 'European' or not?
    Will 'The' come before 'Paris' or not?

    Sentence: The Paris is an European city.
    (1 vote)
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    • aqualine tree style avatar for user David Alexander
      The rule about "a" or "an" (which to choose) is based on whether the initial sound of the following word is a vowel or consonant sound (not on whether the initial letter of the word is a vowel or consonant).

      Though in certain languages, certain cities require the use of a definite article ("La Habana, Cuba" in Spanish, for example), this is never the case in English. Your example sentence best reads as: "Paris is a European city." Buenos Aires is an Argentine city. Baghdad is an Iraqi city. Bari is an Italian city.
      (5 votes)

Video transcript

- [Voiceover] Grammarians, I would like to tell you a tale of two elephants. In order to get at the idea of this thing called the article. We'll explain what that is after I tell you about the elephant and an elephant. Now articles are words like "a" or "an" or "the". Articles are a kind of adjective, some people would call them a determiner, that help you figure out how important something is. Or how specific something is. So, articles. What articles do is they tell you whether or not something is specific. Are you thinking about any old elephant when you talk about an elephant, or are you thinking about one elephant in particular? The elephant. And this is the difference. When we're talking about the elephant we're talking about a specific elephant. We have particular one in mind. This what's called the definite. Because it defines what we're talking about. You know, this elephant could be the queen of the elephants. Sometimes, when we make sentences we want to aim for that kind of precision. We want to be precise. We want to know exactly what we're talking and who we're talking about and why. That's a case where you would use the word "the". Now if you're not being specific. If you're talking about any old elephant. An elephant that you're not especially familiar with. An elephant you haven't introduced before. You would say "an" elephant, because it's not specific... and it's undefined. So, grammarians call that an indefinite article. When you know who and what you are talking about for sure you say "the". And when you're not sure, you say "a" or "an". So if you knew you were talking about a specific elephant. Say for example the queen of the elephants. The queen. As indicated by her royal crown, you would say "the". And if you were talking about any old elephant? You'd say "an". You'd use the indefinite article. We'll cover this more later. I just wanted to give you an introduction to the idea of what an article is. So "the" for specific, "a" or "an" for nonspecific. You can learn anything, David out.