Name: English Grammar: When NOT to use an article – 9 rules
Uploaded: 2022-07-25T18:56:00.000Z
Duration: 18 min 39 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

To-infinitive

I want to talk to you about the zero article.

Now, some of you might not be familiar with this word.

The zero article is basically the situations in which we don't use any article.

Ah and the ah these are definite and indefinite articles.

So I'm gonna give you nine situations or nine rules where you should not use an article and like it is with english in many ways.

So the rule is pretty general, but there are specific exceptions or situations where the rule does not apply.

So we're gonna start with a few very basic ones.

Uh to be honest with you, the only way to understand, like not understand to remember these is just to memorize them and practice them.

Just know the rules and just keep remembering them.

When I get to the last two or three rules, it gets a little bit trickier, but for the beginning it's just very straightforward just to remember.

Okay, so we're gonna start with country names.

So Canada or England or brazil or Iran or china or Vietnam etcetera.

No article but there are exceptions and I wrote this for short, I'll just write it out for you if you want to make sure an exception is the one or two times, whether the rule does not apply.

So any country that has the word Republic Federation or United in the name of the country takes the so for example Korea.

There's two ways to refer to the to the country.

Or the more technical formal name is the Republic of Korea Russia or the Russian Federation.

So as soon as you see these words in the name of the country at the if the country is plural at the so the Philippines, the Virgin Islands, the Seychelles etcetera.

The Bahamas, as soon as there's an s as a plural, add the and of course there's the Vatican which is technically its own country, it's special.

Now we're talking about the people who live in these countries.

Like in that side of the building, that's where the americans are sitting on the Russians sit on the other side, they separate from each other.

So when you're talking about people and you're describing people then you use the otherwise in a general reference nationalities.

You don't use the no article but again there's an exception.

If the nationality is the same word as the language that they speak, then you use the then you use the definite article right?

So the french, speak french, the french means the french people speak french.

No article, same word for nationality and language, the nationality gets an article, but that leads us to rule number three languages, languages don't get an article, no exceptions.

All languages english, french, Russian, Persian, Arabic, chinese, japanese, whatever.

So all sports don't get an article but and this is not really an exception, but it can often be confused.

Sporting events do get an article because there's only one of them.

There are definite events or the olympics, The US open, the whatever other events there are.

Again, some of them are not Wimbledon tennis match.

I'm not sure if there's an actual formal name for it or if it's just Wimbledon tennis match.

But most sporting events get because they're very specific and only one of them.

So these are very easy, you just have to remember the rules and most importantly remember the exceptions that's where people get a little bit confused.

Okay, so now we have a few more rules and again, these are the ones that you're just gonna memorize and try to remember and keep in mind that most of these rules are especially important in writing.

Of course they're important in speaking as well.

But if you make mistakes, people will still generally understand what you're saying in writing, it can make a big difference to the flow to the feel of the writing.

So try to remember these and apply them whenever you can.

So next number five we're looking at academic subjects.

Now, individual subjects don't take an article but when you group them into a category then the category will take an article, it will take the so for example, philosophy is just a subject, it doesn't take an article but philosophy is part of the humanities.

The humanities like philosophy, english all these things that go together.

Whenever you have a grouping at the individual subjects, no article number six.

So now we have a few geographical or geographic features.

These you have to really, they're a little bit hard to remember because you're not going to use these things.

You're not gonna refer to geographic regions very often but you should still remember when to use an article and when not to and again it's just memorization.

So single mountains that are named don't take an article.

So for example, Mount Fuji, Mount Everest, Mount Kilimanjaro.

Because you have the Mt, the Mt acts as the identified as the definite modifier to the name.

But when you have mountain ranges when you have a group of mountains then and you name the group again it's the same as the subjects.

The categories then you add the so the rockies, the Swiss alps, the Himalayan range etcetera.

Bay is like a lake except one end is open to the sea or the ocean A lake is within land surrounded by land.

So lake baikal in Russia or the Hudson bay in Canada.

Again if you're gonna put a group like in North America between Canada and the US, there are the Great Lakes, there are five lakes, Lake Ontario Lake area like here on etcetera.

The Great Lakes as the group individuals not but seas, oceans, gulfs and rivers.

The the Mississippi, the mediterranean sea, the pacific ocean, the gulf of Mexico.

Okay the Mississippi River, the Nile river etcetera.

Other features like canyons, valleys or fjords.

All these things because they are only because there's only one of them.

If it's named then you add the because you're specifying one only but again it's not that often you're going to be talking about the Grand Canyon so you should be able to remember next number seven proper names and this is where it gets, it starts to get a little bit confusing.

Seven and then eight and nine are a little bit more confusing so I'll slow it down when you're talking about person.

So an individual person who you who you whom you're referring to by name does not take an article.

You don't say the bob the Wendy, you just say their names right?

Cos you don't say the apple, you just say apple corp or IBM or amazon or whatever company you're talking about schools Now schools generally do not take an article, but we have an exception here.

Schools that have of in their name take the so for example, Harvard University know the the University of Toronto with the so any school name that has of the College of Medicine.

Anything that has an of in it, even if it's a small one, the London School of Economics, then you're gonna add the no of no.

The again, just remember that there's no I can't really tell you why that is.

So we also had organizations proper names but museums, galleries, churches or basically anything that's like a little bit touristy.

And there's only one of then you add the so the Metropolitan Museum, uh the Uffizi Gallery, the sucker occur.

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English Grammar: When NOT to use an article – 9 rules

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