What is an article?
Articles are basic words without an exact meaning (unlike nouns, verbs and adjectives), that are to be used before nouns (and nothing else but nouns) only to demonstrate what the noun is talking about. Articles give specificity and limitations to the nouns, depending on which article is used.
Usage:
In English, we do not just mention things by their names; instead, we place an article before it. I.E., the chair vs. chair. Notice that there are two types of articles in the English language, and they significantly change the meaning of words. They cannot be used interchangeably unless the meaning of the sentence agrees with what the article states. For instance, you cannot say “a chair” if you mean to talk about a specific chair: “the” chair.
Let’s look further.
The article “the” is what is known as a DEFINITE article. It will talk about a specific noun, and limit it to just ONE.
- the kid, rather than “a” kid
- the car, rather than “a” car
- the apple, rather than “an” apple
You can use “the” with both singular and plural nouns.
The other type of article is called the INDEFINITE (notice that the word tells us that the noun that this article will point to is “not defined” and could be anything). These two articles are “A” and “AN.” The difference? You write “A” when the noun that it will be placed next to starts with a consonant.
Ex: A turtle. A friend. A chair. A piece of chicken.
You will use AN whenever the next word following it starts with a vowel: an apple, an antelope, an eraser, an igloo.
