10 words with articles
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Article type iconUSING ARTICLES—A, AN, THE
Don't Underestimate These Three Little Words
Put simply, an article is a word that combines with a noun. Articles are actually adjectives because they describe the nouns that they precede. In English, there are only three articles: the, a, and an. However, the three are not interchangeable; rather, they are used in specific instances.
The following is some advice from our expert English editing staff regarding how to properly use articles.
Indefinite articles (a and an)
If indefinite articles are the proverbial thorn in your side, the good news is that you don't need a lot of grammatical jargon to understand their usage. You simply need your ears (okay, and maybe just a little grammatical jargon).
In English, a and an are indefinite articles, which means that they don't refer to anything definite or specific. If someone were to say, "Give me an apple," you might be inclined to run out and pick one from the tree outside, or you may even run to the store and buy one. By using the word an, the speaker has let you know that he or she is looking for any apple rather than a specific one.
The same can be said for the article a. If someone told you there's a dog on the road, you would probably want to go out and save it before a car came by. Furthermore, you would know it's not your best friend's dog because the speaker chose to use the word a rather than call the pooch by name. Hence, it's understood that the dog on the road is one of the millions of dogs in the world and is therefore not specific.
How do I know which one to use?
That's a very good question. Fortunately, the answer is quite simple. It's about listening to the words you're using. The rule for indefinite article usage is as follows:
Use a before nouns (or adjectives) that start with a consonant sound.
Use an before nouns (or adjectives) that start with a vowel sound.
Here are some examples from our English editing professionals:
Please give the dog a cookie.
(The noun cookie starts with a consonant sound, so a must be used.)
Please give the dog a delicious cookie.
(Our editing professionals have put the adjective delicious in front of cookie, but as you can see, delicious still starts with a consonant sound, so a must still be used.)
That's an old car. (In this case, the word after the article is old, which starts with a vowel sound. Consequently, our English editors must use an.)
Remember that you're listening here. This isn't about the letter c or d being a consonant or the letter o being a vowel; it's about the sound they make (i.e., vowel sound or consonant sound). Here's another example that might help you understand:
Answer:
Learning task- Articles
10 words with different article