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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