Name: Articles: A, An & The - English grammar tutorial video lesson
Uploaded: 2015-06-23T02:20:38.000Z
Duration: 5 min 21 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...

Welcome to English Grammar Spot! This lesson is about

'a', 'an' and 'the'. Otherwise known as articles.

The imperative

The man walked right past me. A giant spider crawled across the ceiling.

An elephant is a large animal. All the underlined words here

are articles. First I am going to show you how and when to use

'a'. We use 'a' before a word that starts with a constant

consonants. Now I'm going to show you how and when to use

'an'.We use 'an' before a word that starts with a vowel.

and the vowels in the English language are A, E

The use of 'a' or 'an' depends on the beginning sound

so the word might start with a consonant or  a vowel,

but we really need to listen to how the word it is pronounced.

'H'  but we hear a vowel sound at the beginning

So what do we do in this case?  We use the article 'an.'

an hour and not a hour. Another exception:

the use of 'a' and 'an' depends on the beginning sound

a 'U' but we hear a consonant sound 'you'.

an unique chance. So remember, you have to listen carefully to how the word is

and then you choose whether you use 'a' or 'an'.

talk about the indefinite and the definite article.

they are used to describe one or a number of things,

and and its use to describe one or number of things

So what is the difference?  The indefinite article describes

things in general. For instance a dog barks. Because that is what dogs do.

Or a cat 'miaauws' The definite article describes

specific things. For example when we say the

dog barks, we have a particular dog in mind.

For instance the dog of your neighbours or a dog that we see in the street.

the 'zero article'.  Here we do not use an  article at all

whereas in other languages we might.  Sometimes an article is left out.

This happens when there's only one of someone

or something.  For example Sally is head teacher

there's only one head teacher in school and perhaps most important

in this but the second is Queen of the United Kingdom

the is left out. When talking about seasons in general

spring is in the air, not the spring is in the air

in the spring of 2012.  Here I have a particular moment in mind.

for instance when talking about meals in general. When shall we have lunch?

I was very happy with the lunch she served.

And again here we use 'the'  because we have a specific

lunch in mind. We also do not use an article when talking about

church, hospital, prison , school, university

'the' is left out, only when we talk about the function of the building

For instance, he went to university last year. So here we do not have a particular

Whereas: The university is  well situated. This

is about a particular university. For instance Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale.

The is left out when we talk about languages.

Arabic is difficult to learn.  I love learning English.

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Articles: A, An & The - English grammar tutorial video lesson

general

mind

unique

leave