Name: Lesson 1 - Definite / Indefinite Articles
Uploaded: 2015-06-23T02:19:34.000Z
Duration: 5 min 35 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

Today, for our first lesson, we are going to talk about articles.

There are three articles that we will cover for today's class,

But, before we begin, what is an article?

Well, to begin with, there are actually two types of articles that we will work with.

The is used when you talk about something that the person you are talking to knows about.

or about something that is important to what you're saying.

"The weather is cold" is an example of where you use it.

"The cat is hungry", means that there is a cat and that it is hungry.

It doesn't matter if you talk about something in the singular or the plural form.

you say both "The Child" and "The Children".

Indefinite articles are used when you're just talking about something in general.

Or something that the other person doesn't know about.

There isn't a specific cat you have in mind.

"I ate a hamburger" means you ate just another hamburger.

it means that the person you are telling this to should know which hamburger you're talking about.

If you're not sure which one to use, use A and An!

The answer to that is actually pretty simple.

It depends on the first sound in the noun.

like for example "A snake", "A tiger" or "A dog",

Like with "An apple", "An orange" or "An island".

The vowels are the easiest to keep in mind because there's only five of them.

Remember that it's the SOUND, and not the letter, that counts.

Sometimes a letter can be both a vowel OR a consonant!

In horse, however, you can actually hear the consonant.

So, obviously, you're going to go with A.

Let's rehearse what we've talked about today.

We've talked about definite, and indefinite articles.

and they are used when you're talking about something the other person knows about.

There is a cat, or a car, that you are talking about.

are used when you're talking about something the other person doesn't know about.

there are five vowels that you need to keep in mind.