Articles

What is an Article?

An article is a word that goes before a noun, giving

some basic information about the noun, such as if it is

 singular or plural, or if the object is specific or general.

 The English articles are a, an, some, and the.

Indefinite Articles

There are three indefinite articles in English – two for the

 singular form (a, an) and one for the plural form (some).

We use an indefinite article in English when:

We refer to something for the first time

We refer to a general thing, and not something specific

We describe a person’s profession

A/an

We use both ‘a’ and ‘an’ in the same way but we use ‘a’

in front of a consonant, and ‘an’ in front of a vowel

(a,e,i,o,u).

For example:

Here are some examples:

There’s a cat in the garden!

I need a stamp for this letter.

Sally is an accountant. She works for a multinational

company.

We need an apple and an orange for the fruit salad.

Is there a whiteboard in the classroom?

My husband drives a lorry.

Some

We use ‘some’ for the plural form of all nouns and for

uncountables. (An uncountable noun is a word that only

 has the singular form, e.g. ‘sugar’.) For example:

Here are some examples:

Would you like some wine?

Here are some photos of our last holiday.

We need some milk.

Can you get a carton when you go out?

Some people are sunbathing in the park.

There are some fun places to go in my town.

I eat some biscuits and drink some coffee for 

breakfast every day.