The, An, A
The, an, and a are articles that are placed before nouns in English. Many languages don’t have articles, so sometimes, articles can be difficult to understand for speakers of languages that don’t have articles. Here’s how to know when to use each article.
The Article “A”
“A” is an indefinite article. We use it when talking about something for the first time or when we’re talking about something not specific or not special. We only use “a” before countable singular nouns (nouns you can count e.g. dog, pen, cat) that begin with consonant sounds (e.g. b, d, f).
A boy in my class won the prize.
Since we use „a” before countable singular nouns, we DON’T use „a” before uncountable nouns or plural nouns.
The Article “An”
“An” is also an indefinite article. We use it in the same way as “a”, so before countable singular nouns but “an” is used before nouns that begin with a vowel sound (a, e, i, o, u).
She found an old book on the shelf.
It’s important to remember that we use “an” before words that start with a vowel sound, not just vowels. For example:
Umbrella starts with a vowel sound
University starts with a “y” sound, which is a consonant sound
One starts with a “w” sound, which is a consonant sound
Opera starts with a vowel sound
Also, the letter “h” can be tricky:
The “h” is silent, so it starts with a vowel sound
The “h” is pronounced, so it starts with a consonant sound
The Article “A” with Adjectives
So far, we’ve talked about articles with nouns. But what about adjectives? “A” still only modifies nouns. It never directly modifies adjectives.
If there’s an adjective before the noun, the article still goes before the adjective even though it’s modifying the noun. The sound of the adjective also affects which article we use:
The Article “The”
“The” is a definite article. We use it when talking about something specific or something we’ve already mentioned. We use “the” before both countable and uncountable nouns when we’re talking about a particular thing.
The books on the table are mine.
