What is Article? Articles Examples and Sentences
Table of Contents
Articles
“Articles”, which helps us to define a noun as definite or indefinite in English, is one of the first things that people who start to learn this language should learn. It can be easily understood how simple it is if learned correctly. But even those who know advanced English can make mistakes in this grammar. Let’s start learning now.
A/An usage
“a” and “an” are known as “articles” that come before nouns and serve to indicate that these nouns are one of all other similar entities. As an example, these “articles” are used when talking about any apple you pick from your fridge by choosing just one without any discrimination.
If the names begin with a consonant letter; “a” is placed right before the noun, and if the name starts with a vowel, “an” is brought before the noun. There are two things we should pay attention to here. First, “a” and “an” can never be used alone before an adverb or adjective; must be complete. Secondly, since “a” and “an” mean “any” in the sentence, the nouns mentioned must be singular.
Examples:
- a banana
- a cup
- a notebook
- a pencil
- a lion
- a university
We gave examples of the use of “a” above. We need to mention an exception for the “a university” example, which is in the last place among these examples. Even if the word “university” starts with a vowel, it is “a” instead of “an” because we start with a consonant when pronouncing it. The opposite of this situation can also happen. When we look at the examples given below for the use of “an”, the example of “an hour” is the opposite of the exceptional situation we just mentioned. When pronouncing the word “hour”, the letter “h” falls. Since our pronunciation begins with a vowel, it is preceded by “an”, not “a”. Here we understand that the use of “a” and “an” should be used depending on the pronunciation of the word that follows it, not the spelling.
- an apple
- moment officer
- an hour
- an actor
- an engineer
“A” and “an”, which are never used with plural nouns, also cannot be used with uncountable nouns. For example, the words water or milk are uncountable entities. Expressions such as “a water”, “a milk” cannot be used because they cannot be counted.
While uncountable adjectives can never take “a” or “an” alone, they can take adjective phrases.
The
If we give the apple example we gave for the use of “a” and “an” in “the”; If we are talking about an apple, we can mention that “a” or “an” will be used, but if we want a certain apple, the word “the” article should be used. Apart from this, the use of “the” does not mean a certain numerical value, unlike the words “a” and “an” article. For this reason, “the” can be used with both plural and singular nouns.
“the” is used at the beginning of words related to weather, nature, and time.
- the World
- the rain
- the universe
“the” is used at the beginning of geographical names such as mountains, rivers, seas, islands, oceans.
“the” is not used at the beginning of countries and special names.
Although country names do not have “the”, “the” is used to indicate the people of the country or in countries consisting of the united states.
- The English
- The United States of America
University names are prefixed with “the” and used with “of”.
- The University of Manchester
Certain numbers are used with “the”.
- the first
- the third
Musical instruments and inventions are used with “the”.
- the radio
- the piano
Games and sports branches cannot be used together with “the”.
