Tuesday, March 17, 2015

The Articles

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a/ The Indefinite Articles
Singular A / AN
(A) is used before singular nouns beginning with a consonant sound .
Examples :
A happy family.
A hag.
A compartment.
A man.
A beautiful garden.
A tree.
A lucky fellow.
A meeting.
A heap of broken image.
A nice morning.
(AN) is used before a word beginning with a vowel or voiceless or weak (H).
The vowels are  =     A,O,U,E,I
An orange                                   An hour
An egg                                        An honest  man
An inkpot                                   An angry woman
* Some words start with a vowel but the first sound is a consonant  and thus (A) must be used .
Examples :
A European                                A university  
A useful thing                             A one-eyed man
No articles is used with indefinite plural nouns.
Examples :
Devils laugh.
Boys play.
Flowers wither.
Birds sing.
Aeroplanes are fast.
Horses run.
Mothers are kind to children.
 * Try to do this exercise :
Add (A) or (AN) when necessary.
1.That is ….great idea.
2. Take …..advice from….expert.
3. What …..wonderful surprise!
4. I am starting ….. new life.
5. I want …. glass of lemonade with …. piece of sugar in it.
b/ The Definite Article
"The" is used :
1- When we are thinking of one particular thing.
For example :
He is looking for a job.
Did he got the job he applied for?
2- When it is clear in the situation which thing or person we mean
The hotel we stayed in is very nice.
I want to see the manager of the firm.
3- When there is only one of something : the sun ,the moon ,the earth, etc.
4-  Before “same” ( the same)
Her dress is the same as mine.
5- Before superlatives.
The Amazone is the longest river in the world.
6- When we are thinking of something as a general idea. 
He goes to the cinema every weekend.
7- The  + adjective
We use  the  +  adjective(without a noun) to talk about groups of people.
Example:
The young, the old, the rich, the poor, the injured etc ….
8- The  + nationality
We use "the" with some nationality adjectives to mean " the people of that country.
For example:
The  Americans
The  French
The  English etc…
9- We use the + a singular countable noun to talk about a type of animals, machines etc…
For example :
The giraffe is the tallest animal.
The piano is my favorite instrument.
10- With the names of canals, rivers, seas, oceans, etc…
and in names with "Republic" "Kingdom" " States" etc…
such as the United States of America.
The United Kingdom
Omission of the definite article :
a- We don’t use “the” when we are talking about things or people in general .
For example :
- I’m afraid of dogs.
- All cars have wheels.
b- With uncountable nouns
- Sugar is not good for you .
- We use "the" with the nouns mentioned above if they are qualified
For example :
Can you pass the sugar on the table?
*- Countable and uncountable nouns.
A noun can be countable or uncountable .
1) A countable noun can be singular (apple) or plural (apples).
- I eat an apple every day.
2) An uncountable noun has only one form
I eat rice every day.
I like rice.
3) countable nouns are things we can count, so we can "one apples" etc...
4) Uncountable nouns are things we cannot count. We cannot say"one rice" two rices" etc …
5) We can use a/an with singular countable nouns: a book, a student, an egg.
6) We can’t use singular countable nouns alone (without  a/an/the/ etc …)
I want an apple (not I want apple).
7) We can’t use a/an/an with uncountable nouns.

We do not say “a rice” or “a water” but we can say a bowl of rice, a drop of water.