A, AN, THE - Articles in English

http://www.engvid.com/ 'I saw A movie last night' or 'I saw THE movie last night'? A, AN, and THE are called articles and they can be very confusing. Learn exactly when and how to use articles in English in this important grammar lesson! http://www.engvid.com/a-an-the-articles-in-english/

Articles - a, an & the - English Grammar lesson

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The 3 articles in English are a, an and the. The learner has to decide noun-by-noun which one of the articles to use.

In fact, there are 4 choices to make, because sometimes no article is necessary. Native-speakers, of course, use the articles correctly without thinking. English learners, on the other hand, need to have some guidelines for making the right choice - particularly those learners whose own language does not have articles.

The guidelines that follow in this lesson should help ESL students to a basic understanding of English article use.

The words a, an and the are known as articles.
• We use an before words that begin with vowels (a,e,i,o,u).

E.g. I found an orange boat.

However there are few exceptions like the words honest and hour. In the words honest and hour the alphabet h is silent and therefore the letter o becomes the first alphabet of the word and hence we use the article an.

E.g. Mr. Smith is an honest man.
I will be with you in an hour.

We use a before words that begin with consonants (all the letters of the alphabet except the vowels).

E.g. Bumble is a baby elephant.
• We use the before words that we have already spoken about.
E.g. I bought an apple. The apple is very sweet.
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