Use of Articles A, An,The – Remove Common Errors

Examweb.in is trying to cover all the Topics of English Grammar for the Competitive Exams. After covering Prepositions, Narration, Tense and other  many topics, we are covering Articles now. The Articles are of two types – Definite and Indefinite.

The Definite Article is one that is certain and used with the specific and known thing. “ The ” is the Definite Article. On the other hand, there are indefinite articles which are considered uncertain and used with the little known things. They are A and An. Besides they have various use. Let’s do the usage of A, An and The.

Use of A and An –

They are the shortened form of One or Any.

 Use of A –

A is used with all the Consonant ( व्यंजन ) sounds :

A Bag, A Cow, A One Eyed Man, A European Man etc.

Here we have not to see the use of vowel as the first letter as in One Eyed Man and A European Man. Here we have to consider the sounds produced by them and it is a consonant sound w in One and u in European. So Article A shall be used.

Use of An –

An is used with Vowel Sounds :

An Essay, An Important Question, An Heir, An honest girl, An hour An Umbrella etc.

Here the consonants like h and u are producing vowel sounds.

A and An can be used in the sense of ” One ” and “Per “-

I have a car. It means I have one car.

I eat an apple a day means One Apple per day.

In the sense of ” Any ” –

A Mr. Sharma was asking for you. ( It means you are unknown to Mr Sharma )

I saw a boy ( any boy ) in the ground.

Before a singular common noun, to make it a class ( group ) example – A dog is a faithful animal. All the dogs.

Use of The, Definite Article –

1. Before the names of seas, oceans, rivers, series of mountains, group of islands, deserts, gulfs, etc –

e.g the Ganges, the Arabian Sea, the Pacific Ocean, the Himalayas, the Andamans, The Sahara, The Persian Gulf

2. Before the names of heavenly bodies –

e.g. The sun, the moon, the earth etc.

3. Before historical buildings –

e.g. The Taj Mahal,  The Red Fort, etc.

4. Before the names of trains, ships and aeroplanes –

e.g. The Shatabadi Express, the Maharajah, the Jaguar etc.

5. Before the names of hotels and banks –

e.g. The Taj, the Oriental Bank of Commerce

6. Before the names of Newspapers, magazines and Scriptures –

e.g. The Hindustan Times, the Debonair, the Ramayana, the Quran, the Guru Granth Sahib, the Bible etc.

7. Before Political Parties –

e.g The Congress, the BJP etc.

8. Before the names of the countries and states if their names show the geographical or political features of the concerned country and state –

e.g. the USA, the UK, the Punjab etc

USA shows that all the states are united, a political feature.

Punjab means a land between five rivers.

9. Before some languages if they are to convert in to the nationals of the concerned country –

e.g English is spoken by the English.

Here the English means Britons, the citizens of England.

10. Before the directions –

e.g. the north, the south etc.

11. Before the Unique posts –

e.g. The PM, The CM

12. Before the Important Buildings of the world –

e.g. The Parliament House

13. Before the superlative degree –

e.g. John is the best player of our team.

14. Before the comparative degree in the proportionate sentences –

e.g. The higher you go the cooler it is.

15. Before the ordinal numbers –

e.g. He was the first person to come and I was the last person to go.

16. Immediately after All –

e.g All the people, All the students

17. The institutions like schools, colleges, prisons, hospitals etc take the article ‘ the ‘ if used for the secondary function, and don’t take ‘ the ‘ if used for the primary function-

He went to the hospital to meet his sick friend. ( Secondary )

We reach school in time everyday. ( Primary )

Learn Omission of Articles – The places where Articles can’t be used

Practice Set – 1 for Articles

We shall update this post with some more points later. So keep visiting this page for more and more material concerned with Grammar.