Articles and Determiners
When to use a, an, the or no article; choosing a or an by sound rather than spelling; the main uses of the definite article; and the other determiners that compete for the same slot before a noun.
What you will be able to do
- Choose between a, an, the and the zero article for a given noun.
- Apply the a/an choice by initial sound, not spelling.
- State the standard situations that call for the definite article.
- Recognise other determiners and the fact that only one fills the slot.
What is inside this lesson
- 1What articles do
- 2A or an - go by sound
- 3When to use the
- 4No article at all
- 5The other determiners
- 6Worked example: filling the article
- 7Common mistakes
- 8Quick revision
- 9Practice
Get Pro for full access. This is section 1 of 9; the rest of the lesson opens with Pro at onelystop.in/upgrade.
What articles do
A, an and the are the English articles. They sit at the front of a noun phrase and signal whether the noun is being introduced as one of a kind (a, an) or pointed to as already known (the), or whether it needs no article at all.
Articles are a large share of error-detection and fill-in items because English rules here differ from many first languages, so a wrong or missing article reads as natural until you look for it.
Reading the 9 sections above is free. A free account opens the first 2 topics of every subject in full, along with flashcards and private notes.