ARTICLE
What’s article? Well, article is basically an
adjective. Just like the other adjectives,
article defines nouns. In English language, the articles are a, an,
and the.
The word a
(which becomes an when the next word
begins with a vowel – a, e, i, o, u) is called the indefinite article because
it indicates that the noun of it is not particular or general.
When we are going to put an article before the nouns,
it depends on how the word sounds, not what the first letter of the word is.
I’ll give you some examples.
“a
university”. Some of you may wonder why do we use a instead of an while
the first letter of the word is u? Because when we say “university”, the word
sounds “youniversity”, not “university”. Y is a consonant.
“an hour”.
We use an to define the word because
when we pronounce “hour”, it sounds “our”,
not “hour”. O is a vocal.
“an MTV”.
It’s like a mind blowing. I thought the first time I saw the word we would use
“a”, but the right article for it is
“an”. Why? Yes, it’s true that the
first letter of MTV is “M” and it’s
a consonant, but when it’s pronounced, it sounds “EM TI VI”, right? So we use “an”
before “MTV”.
The word the
is known as the definite article because it indicates specific things. The is used to define both specific singular
and plural nouns. The can be used
with uncountable nouns.
For example:
“I saw the
tall guy yesterday”, the sentence refers to specific guy, whom is tall.
In the following
sentence supplies the articles (a, an, the) if they are necessary. If no
article is necessary leave the space blank.
1. Jason’s father bought him the bicycle that he had wanted for his birthday.
2. Please give me a
cup of coffee with cream and sugar.
3. no one in the
Spanish class knew the correct
answer to Mrs. Perez’s question.
4. When you go to a
store, please buy a bottle of
chocolate milk, and a dozen
oranges.
