Articles

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HeyGen Introduction Video

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Articles are little words that we use before nouns to give more information about them. They help us understand if we’re talking about something specific or general. There are three articles in English: a, an, and the.

The following video has all the information you need about articles.

Let’s review the important points from the video.

The Three Articles

“A”

• Use “a” when you are talking about one thing and it’s not specific (we don’t know exactly which thing you mean).
  • “I have a dog.”
    (There are many dogs, but this is one dog, not a specific one.)
  • Do you have a pen?
• We use “a” with words that start with a consonant sound.
  • “I have a cat.”
  • “She is reading a book.”

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“An”

• Use “an” in the same way as “a” but only when the next word starts with a vowel (a, e, i, o, u).
  • “I ate an apple.”
    (We say “an apple” because “apple” starts with a vowel sound: a.)
  • “He is an artist.”
  • “I saw an elephant at the zoo.”

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“The”

• Use “the” when you are talking about something specific (something that both you and the listener know about).
  • “I love the dog you have.”
    (We are talking about one specific dog, the one you have.)
  • “This is the car of my dad“
• Use “the” when the noun is unique (there’s only one of it).
  • “I live in the house of my parents.”
    (There is only one house where your parents live, so we use “the”.)
  • “I loved the movie that we saw yesterday.“
• We also use “the” for things like places, countries, and when we talk about something we both know.
  • “The school is closed today.”
  • “We went to the beach last weekend.”

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In the next image, you can find more examples of the articles being used correctly:

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Simple Rules to Remember 🧠

• Use “a” for one thing, not specific, and when the next word starts with a consonant.
  • “I saw a bird.”
• Use “an” for one thing, not specific, and when the next word starts with a vowel sound.
  • “I ate an orange.”
• Use “the” when you talk about one specific thing or something that everyone knows.
  • “I am going to the store.” (Everyone knows which store.)

Practice Zone

1. In this first activity, choose the right article for each sentence.

Click here to access the “choose the correct article” activity.

2. This next activity is multiple-choice. Choose the correct article for each sentence.

3. For this activity, drag and drop the words into the correct article box.