Name: Indefinite Articles (A, An..)
Uploaded: 2015-06-23T02:20:57.000Z
Duration: 7 min 3 s
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Present continuous

Hello. This is Tom Taylor with English Lessons. Today we are going to talk about articles.

The main articles are A , An, The plus Some and Any. And what are articles used for? Articles

To-infinitive

are used to provide additional information about nouns. There are two different types

of articles. Definite articles and indefinite articles. The definite article is THE. It

indicates a specific item. The indefinite articles are A, An, Some and Any. They indicate

impreciseness of the noun. So sometimes it doesn't make a difference whether you use

an A or whether you’re using The and sometimes it does. For example, in newspaper articles

the newspaper articles are dropped and it doesn’t change the meaning of the headline.

It's important for students to learn how to use articles properly in order to communicate

effectively. Articles are very important for speaking proper English. Sometimes the difference

between the definite article and indefinite article is not important. In other cases it

is important and it makes a major difference in meaning between two different ways of saying

something. Additionally in a lot of cases the articles can be omitted or they can be

dropped. For example, you are taking notes. It's not necessary to put in “A” and “The”

while you are taking notes, because it's just takes extra time and you can still understand

the meaning of what you say even though the articles are not there. A third example is

signs or very short directives will also omit the articles but people will naturally understand

what the meaning is without the article being included. Let's take a look at the indefinite

articles- A, AN, SOME and ANY. Example is I see a house or I eat an apple. If the noun

begins with a consonant we use A, if the noun begins with a vowel we use AN. We also use

SOME for plural nouns. For example, I bought some apples. Also we use ANY for questions,

typically asking about the existence of something. For example, Does the store have any cereal.

Do you have any pencils? Now let's cover some of the uses of the indefinite articles. One

example is when the noun is used as part of the general statement, as representative of

a class of objects. For example, an apple a day, keeps the doctor away. In this case

we are referring to the general class of apples. Another example is "A person should exercise

every morning. Another example is when the noun is identified for the first time. This

is a very common use. For example, I see an empty table by the window. The table looks

good. " So the first use we use indefinite article "A" and once we identify the specific

noun then we use "THE". Another example of the indefinite article is when we are talking

about one of a group of nouns and we don’t really have an intention of identifying one

of them in more detail. For example " I took a book from the library". Another case of

the indefinite article is to indicate ONE. I have a hundred dollars, instead of saying

" I have one hundred dollars" or " I have a car" instead of saying " I have a car".

Another case for the indefinite article is to identify a quantity. For example "Meat

costs three dollars a pound or "I drive 65 miles an hour or pencils cost 10 cents apiece.

Articles can also be used after "WHAT" and "Such" for a demonstrative statement. I can

say "What a beautiful day" or "Such a nice car". Also articles are used to indicate "ONE"

for a number. For example" I have a hundred dollars" or I have a thousand of dollars in

the bank". Or "his is worth a million dollars". "SOME" is use and a plural form of indefinite

articles. For example" I have an apple". Or "I have some apples" Or I see a car on the

road. I see some cars on the road. In addition, "SOME" can also be used to identify an individual

noun. Thank you very much for watching this video and stay tuned for our next video.