Level: beginner
The definite article the is the most frequent word in English.
We use the definite article in front of a noun when we believe the listener/reader knows exactly what we are referring to:
- because there is only one:
The Pope is visiting Russia.
The moon is very bright tonight.
Who is the president of France?
This is why we use the definite article with a superlative adjective:
He is the tallest boy in the class.
It is the oldest building in the town.
- because there is only one in that context:
We live in a small house next to the church. (= the church in our village)
Dad, can I borrow the car? (= the car that belongs to our family)
When we stayed at my grandmother’s house, we went to the beach every day. (= the beach near my grandmother’s house)
Look at the boy over there. (= the boy I am pointing at)
- because we have already mentioned it:
A young man got a nasty shock when he tried to rob a jewellery shop in Richmond. The man used a heavy hammer to smash the windows in the shop.
We also use the definite article:
- to say something about all the things referred to by a noun:
The wolf is not really a dangerous animal. (= Wolves are not really dangerous animals.)
The kangaroo is found only in Australia. (= Kangaroos are found only in Australia.)
The heart pumps blood around the body. (= Hearts pump blood around bodies.)
We use the definite article in this way to talk about musical instruments:
Joe plays the piano really well.
She is learning the guitar.
- to refer to a system or service:
How long does it take on the train?
I heard it on the radio.
You should tell the police.
- The definite article the 1
- The definite article the 2
- The definite article the 3
Level: intermediate
We can also use the definite article with adjectives like rich, poor, elderly and unemployed to talk about groups of people:
Life can be very hard for the poor.
I think the rich should pay more taxes.
She works for a group to help the elderly.
Level: beginner
The definite article with names
We do not normally use the definite article with names:
William Shakespeare wrote Hamlet.
Paris is the capital of France.
Iran is in Asia.
But we do use the definite article with:
- countries whose names include words like kingdom, states or republic:
| the United Kingdom | the Kingdom of Bhutan |
| the United States | the People's Republic of China |
- countries which have plural nouns as their names:
| the Netherlands | the Philippines |
- geographical features, such as mountain ranges, groups of islands, rivers, seas, oceans and canals:
| the Himalayas | the Canaries | the Atlantic (Ocean) | the Amazon | the Panama Canal |
- newspapers:
| The Times | The Washington Post |
- well-known buildings or works of art:
| the Empire State Building | the Taj Mahal | the Mona Lisa |
- organisations:
| the United Nations | the Seamen's Union |
- hotels, pubs and restaurants:
| the Ritz | the Ritz Hotel | the King's Head | the Déjà Vu |
But note that we do not use the definite article if the name of the hotel or restaurant is the name of the owner:
| Brown's | Brown's Hotel | Morel's | Morel's Restaurant |
- families:
| the Obamas | the Jacksons |
- The definite article with names 1
- The definite article with names 2
- The definite article with names 3
- The definite article with names 4
Thank you Sir.
Hello,
Quick question about "the" article.
Would you say
"The world famous movie Avatar" or "world famous movie Avatar"
"The American activist Jennifer Harbury" or "American activist Jennifer Harbury"
Would both be potentially grammatically correct?
Thank you very much
Hello JoelleCarrier,
When we use articles or not is highly dependent on the context and there are so many possible contexts (certainly more than I can think of!) that it's really hard for me to say for sure without knowing more. If you'd like to provide a context, please feel free to write back.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello, I know it's not the right place to ask,but couldn't find the right one.
Could you clarify the difference of the two that I found in the headlines,please?
Ukrainian police,officials and the like.
But Ukraine's president.Why not Ukrainian president or president of Ukraine?
Hi Sajatadib,
It's also fine to say "the Ukrainian president" or "the president of Ukraine". They mean the same thing and they are also commonly used.
"The" is needed in both of those phrases.
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Dear Team,
While my professional writing, I’ve got an issue on how the definite article is to be used in case of nouns with abstract meanings. The main question is whether an abstract word should be narrowed down to the last technically possible extent or any characteristic is ok to consider it specified and use “the”? I've found some examples of the definite article usage with such words. Could you, please, reply to my questions below? I’ve really got confused. I’ve passed IELTS Academic once (for 7.5), so I’ve tried to learn it from my IELTS books but there is nothing there on such cases. I’ve also looked it up in the Wallwork’s book of English for academic research and it tells us that “the normal rules of the use of articles in English have apparently been broken but are nevertheless frequently found in research papers written by native speakers” which got me even more confused cos’ it’s scientifically proved the English language is an analytic language and categories (instead of holistic connections) and inconsistency avoidance are essential. Here are the examples.
1. Both the phrases have a context as well as a reference (an implied connection to the company is clear to the target audience) by “of” phrases. Why "the" is preceding the word "elimination" but not "production" here?
1.1. We want to stop producing defective parts in our manufacturing - the elimination of variation is our goal (Cambridge Dictionary) I know “elimination of variation “ is a well-established term and I guess that’s why the zero article is preceding “variation” and the definite article is preceding only “elimination” here. It’s clearly obvious it’s about the variation in the production of a known to the target audience company. Am I right?
1.2. Production of the new aircraft will start next year (Oxford Dictionary) I guess “the new aircraft” has already been mentioned or implied in the context from which the phrase has been taken. Furthermore, before a decision to produce sth is finally made, a prototype of a new product is always constructed, I mean the way&details of any production process are always known before it actually starts (I know it from my work experience). Is “the” not preceding “production” here cos’ it’s implied the production details are not known to the target audience (the audience consists of people outside the company)? Or is it the concept that a future production can’t be definite as it’s not happened yet?
2. Why is there no definite article before "production" in the example below?
We need to increase production by 20%. (Cambridge Dictionary) - It's obvious not all production of the globe is going to be increased by 20% in the example but the production of the company whose managers are talking about it. Even if there are several production lines there, they still belong to this specific company implied by the speaker (and it’s clear for a listener). Thus, it can’t be interpreted as a generic reference (“all of them anywhere” as in “Money makes the world go around”). If a specification (even of an uncountable noun) is implied by the situation, the definite article is required accordingly to the rule. I guess there is no point in giving impracticable examples to English learners. The production of the company = all the production lines of all types of the company, not “all of them everywhere in the globe”
There is another example of an uncountable noun as well as of a group which can be further divided into (protein) types but specified only to the exact organism type (the main entity): At present, the annotation of the proteins of A. gambiae is preliminary. (A. Wallwork. English for Academic Research: Grammar, Usage and Style, p. 32).
3. While completing capital build and loss elimination looks wholly achievable, the bank needs some time to finish these tasks. (BBC website) Here “loss elimination” is also specified as connected to the exact bank about which the article is. Is there no definite article just because “elimination” doesn’t have grammatically connected “of” here?
4.
4.1.Would it be right to say “the elimination of losses” or “elimination of losses”? Or should “loss” be used instead of “losses”? the elimination of disease/poverty/crime (Oxford Dictionary) Here “elimination” is specified (narrowed down) by the “of” construction. “disease/poverty/crime” is a generic reference to uncountable nouns = all of them everywhere
4.2. The hypothesis about the partial elimination of the financial losses and financial risk elimination of the PUs has been supplied by our simulations. (EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking) Here losses are narrowed down to the finance field. So, it’s a specific reference. I guess we can say here either “the financial losses” or “finance loss” or “the loss of finances”? I guess it’s right to say “the financial risk elimination of the PUs” but “financial risk elimination” without “of” structure. Am I right or not?
5. “Lack” is marked as “[uncountable, singular]” (Cambridge Dictionary) And then one of examples is the following. He was suffering from a complete lack of confidence. It’s commonly known that indefinite article can’t be used with uncountable nouns. Furthermore, when a noun can be both uncountable and countable (in a bit different meanings), it’s always marked in a dictionary as "countable, uncountable". Where is a mistake here?
I would really appreciate it if you help me.
Kind regards,
Hello Yv Lamar,
I appreciate the effort you've gone to to post your query in such detail! However, I have to say that this rather goes beyond the scope of our site here. We provide what help we can for learners who have questions but we are a small team and there is a difference between answering single questions and providing what would effectively be a long essay covering a wide range of issues. This is really an issue for discussion one-to-one with a teacher or colleague rather than a brief interaction in the comments section.
What I will say in general is that article choice is very much dependent on the context in which the language is used and the perspective of the speaker; there is often a choice of correct articles depending on these factors rather than a single correct option.
I'll try to demonstrate with one of your examples.
Your question was "Why "the" is preceding the word "elimination" but not "production" here?"
All of the following examples are grammatically possible here:
The choice depends on the speaker. If the speaker sees or wishes to present, for example, elimination as a general concept then they will use the zero article. If, on the other hand, they see this as one specific act of elimination and perceive it as being one amongst a number of act of elimination then they will use the definite article. It's really not a question of grammar so much as one of personal choice/perspective/style. It may well also be influenced by collocational aspects - the speaker may be unconsciously choosing a particular form because they have seen, heard or read it before and see it as a likely chunk. In other words, it just sounds right to them in the same way that 'salt and pepper' sounds right and 'pepper and salt' does not.
I hope that helps somewhat. I think you might find stackexchange useful for these kinds of discussions - it's really what that site was intended for and there are a lot of knowledgeable posters there:
https://english.stackexchange.com/
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello,
In these sentences, do we use (the) or not? :-
1-I want a job in (. ) machine industry.
2- I like (. ) old-fashioned jazz.
Hello Suleman Mohalab,
In 1, yes, you should use 'the' because there is only one machine industry -- there may be different specialised types, but they can all be grouped into this one category.
In 2, no, you should not use 'the' because it's a statement about that kind of jazz in general.
Hope this helps.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Mr.Kirk,
First thank you for your reply, I am agree with you in the case number one, but in the case number 2 I want to know how is the old-fashioned jazz a general kind of jazz. I think it is specific.
Hello Suleman Mohalab,
You're welcome!
I'm sorry my explanation of 2 wasn't clear. When we make a general statement about something (e.g. 'Family is more important than money' or 'Kittens are cute' or 'I like Cuban music'), we don't normally use a definite article. This is why we would say 'I like old-fashioned jazz' (without 'the') -- it's a general statement about something.
This doesn't mean that 'old-fashioned jazz' is general; as you observe, it is a specific kind of jazz. But my statement about it is general.
Does that make sense?
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Suleman, continuing this context, this means that if i say
"I like old-fashioned jazz"
I should also say
"I like machine industry"
Correct?
Hello Andres_b,
I think the difference here is that 'old-fashioned jazz' and 'the machine industry' are different kinds of categories. There are probably different versions of each category, but there are probably lots of different versions of the category 'old-fashioned jazz'.
'the machine industry', in contrast, is (as far as I know) more well defined. It strikes me as a category used by specialists and is therefore more singular, i.e. there is only one.
I hope that makes sense and that it helps.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Sorry Kirk for mistakenly switching your name with Suleman's in the previous comment
Hello Mr.Kirk,
First thank you for your reply, I am agree with you in the case number one, but in the case number 2 I want to know how is the old-fashioned jazz a general kind of jazz. I think it is specific.
Hello guys,
I would like to ask a question about the paragraph given below. If you could kindly answer I will be happy:
The fact is that the cooking wasn't complete so they didn't have anything to eat so that means that while the past continuous shows us a long continuing action that is in progress at a specific moment IN THE PAST, the past perfect continuous shows us a long continuing action that isn't necessarily in progress at a specific moment IN PAST.
My question is that, why is there an article "the" in one of the phrase as there is no in the other one? I have difficulties of understanding of the article 'the'.
Thanks for the answer.
Take care of all the team.
Hi knownman,
Do you mean "IN THE PAST" and "IN PAST"? It must be a typing error. "In the past" is the correct version. :)
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Jonathan,
Thanks for the answer and yes I meant those phrases written in capital letters.
I wonder that if the native English speakers make mistakes about the article "the"? I feel like they don't care so much about it, even in an academic writing and speaking. As I mentioned in my first question I have been having issues of understanding of the article "the" especially when I speak. I am aware of that acquiring a language is a process that takes some time. But if you can give an another perspective about the below question I will be more appreciated.
What is the situation of native speakers using the article the? Do they underestimate of using it?
Thanks in advance for your answer.
Take care.
Hello knownman,
I agree with Jonathan: surely the writer meant 'in the past' (which would be correct). 'in past' is not correct there, though it is possible when 'past' is an adjective (e.g. 'They were successful on past attempts').
Ultimately we can't explain another person's writing, but I strongly suspect the writer unintentionally left out a word here. It's very common for anyone to leave out a word or misspell it when writing. I myself have done this many times; sometimes I catch the mistakes and correct them, but sometimes I don't. I expect that's what happened here.
In general, native speakers don't make mistakes with 'the'. I can certainly understand how native speaker usage of the definite article can seem inconsistent, but I'd say that in 99% of cases it is not. I think the best thing you can do as a learner is to read lots of texts and study instances that you have a hard time making sense of. You could also read through comments others have made on this page and our responses to them.
And be sure to patient! It really does take most people quite some time to feel more confident about them, and it's unusual never to make a mistake with them as a non-native.
I hope this helps.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello there.I was wondering about scientific terms such as global warming, climate change , etc.For instance: How should we tackle climate change?
Please help me out here,Is the definite article needed in front of climate change? Thanks in advance.
Hello Sajatadib,
No, in general no article is needed before 'climate change'. You might want to have a look at a major online newspaper and search for 'climate change'. I'm sure you'll find several articles where you can see how the phrase is used in different ways.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello good teachers.I would appreciate it if you could help me with this.I read a headline: How the British took over India.My question is what should we do with nationalities(here British)? with or without the definite article?
Hi Sajatadib,
Good question! The definite article is used correctly here. With some nationality adjectives, we can use "the" + adjective to mean the whole group of people. For example, "the British" means "British people" or "Britons". This can be done with:
This cannot be done with all adjectives. For example, to mean "Canadian people", we can only say "the Canadians" (not "the Canadian").
I hope that helps.
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello teachers
may I know what I can use when I talk in general:
1-"People in Canada are kind" or "The people in Canada are kind".
2-"Restaurants in my city are good" or "The restaurants in my city are good".
3-"Boys in my class are clever" or "The boys in my class are clever".
Thank you.
Hello Ahmed Hassan,
We use 'the' (the definite article) when we are specifying which item or groups of items we are talking about, and we use no article when we are talking about concepts or general categories. When we have a very large group, such as everyone in a country, we can speak of them as a general category, but when the group is very small this is not possible. So in part it depends on the size of the group.
Looking at your examples one by one:
1) Both forms are possible. You can talk in general about people as this is a very large group, but you can also use 'the' because the phrase 'in Canada' specifies which people you are talking about.
2) Here I think 'the' is more likely as the group size is not so large.
3) Here I think 'the' is required. Your class is not big enough to treat its boys as a general category.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello. Could you please help me? I think both articles are OK in the following sentence, right? If not, why please.
- Naguib Mahfouz was a pioneer in (the - no article) Arabic Literature.
Thank you.
Hello Ahmed Imam,
No article is correct here; 'the' is not correct. It would indeed make sense to use 'the' here, but when we're speaking about the entire corpus of literature in a language, we don't use any article. 'Mahfouz was a pioneer in Arabic Literature', 'Don Quixote is the greatest work in all of Spanish literature', etc. I'm not sure why this is, but it is the case.
When, however, the word 'literature' refers to research that has been written on a topic, it's correct to use 'the' to refer to it. This is quite common in academic papers. For example, if I were writing an article about Naguib Mahfouz and wanted to speak about all of the academic papers that had been written about him, I could say something like 'All of the literature agrees that his exploration of existential themes is ...' Here 'the literature' refers to all of the secondary academic papers (whatever language they were written in), not to the primary sources.
Does that make sense?
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
_watch tells us _time. which article should be used here? and why.
Hello Bharti,
Assuming that this is a definition, the correct articles are 'a' and 'the': 'A watch tells us the time.'
A definition introduces a new topic and so that is why we generally use 'a' instead of 'the'. The plural is also sometimes used ('Watches tell us the time'), but that doesn't seem to be an option here and the use of the singular is more common I'd say.
As for 'the time', when we're asking or speaking about clock time, we generally use 'the'. This is not an absolute rule, but is true in most cases.
If you are doing intensive study of articles, I'd suggest that you analyse sentences within context -- in other words, within paragraphs or texts that are longer than a single sentence. This is because which article is correct depends a lot on the situation, and with just a single sentence there often isn't enough information about the situation.
Hope this helps.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Teachers
I find some words written with and without a definite article such as "water" and "air". is there any difference?
Hello Ahmed Hassan,
We use 'the' when we are talking about something identified and specific. For example:
"There is water on the floor. What happened?"
"I spilt it when I was making some tea. Don't worry - I'll mop up the water."
The speaker says 'the water' in the second sentence because he or she knows which water they are talking about - it has already been identified.
Obviously, the use of 'the' depends on the context and how much information is shared between the speakers.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello again, Teacher.
I mean when we talk about the words "water" and "air" in general, do we say "in water / in air" or "in the water/ in the air", for example, "How long can you hold your breath in the water?" and "How long can you fly a kite in the air ?".
Hello again Ahmed Hassan,
The phrases here would be a little different. We would most often say 'under water' and 'in the sky':
> How long can you hold your breath under water?
> How long can you fly a kite in the sky?
There are other possibilities but I think these are the most frequently used. 'Water' here is general rather than specific. 'The sky' is used because in this context we are thinking of the sky as a single thing which covers the whole world.
Articles are a rule-based grammatical system but there are also a lot of collocations and fixed expressions involved, so not every example can be explained with a clear grammatical rule.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello, Peter M. I see your sentence use "would" two times. Could you explain how it works?
The phrases here would be a little different. We would most often say 'under water' and 'in the sky':
Hello Selet,
When we reply in this way we are imagining a context in which the person might use the language, so there is an implied condition: If you wanted to say... you would use...
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Thanks, Peter M. You use "in which" in your sentence. Does it mean "where?"
When we reply in this way we are imagining a context in which the person might use the language
Hello again Selet,
Yes, that's correct. There are a number of prepositional forms like this. Here are some examples:
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Kindly explain the following article:
"The" Wright brothers,
Wright brothers is a proper noun yet we write "the" infornt of it. Does it needed?
Hello caprio_boy,
Yes, that is correct. In this case, it's as if we're speaking about the Wright family.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
the words like "restaurant, pub, shop, bank" when they is used with "the", I think they don't describe an specific example, but rather refer to an action although the listener doesn't know which restaurant/bank/shop/ I'm going to. For example, there is more than one of them, and I say to my friend that I'm going to the pub/bank/shop, etc, clearly he/she doesn't know which pub/bank/shop/restaurant I'm going to.
What do you think about this point, sir?
Hello Crokong,
Articles are highly context-dependent, so I'm afraid it's impossible to explain the use of 'the' in most sentences without knowing the speaker's point of view and the situation they are speaking in.
One way to think about this use of 'the' is the one just before the first exercise on this page: we can use 'the' to refer to a system or service. Restaurants, pubs, shops and banks are all a kind of service and so, as you suggest, the speaker could be referring to any specific place that offers the service they're looking for.
But it could be, for example, that there's only one pub in their location. In that case, 'I'm going to the pub' could refer to the fact that there's only one. It could also be that the people the speaker is talking to already know which pub she's talking about -- perhaps they are a group of friends who always go to the same pub.
As I hope you can see, it's really difficult to understand articles without considering the specific situation of an utterance.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Thanks for the explanation, Kirk. What if there are a lot of restaurant or shop in the place? Since there's lots, obviously my friend or the listener doesn't know which restaurant or shop I'm going to. It's only me who know which one I'm going to. In this case, should I remain using "the"? "I'm going to the restaurant."
Or perhaps if there is lots in the location, we can use the name of the reataurant/shop.
Hello Crokong,
Yes, you could still say 'the' in this context when you're thinking of these places -- especially 'bank', 'pub', 'school' -- as places where you can get a service, even if you're not exactly sure which one you'll go to. It's not impossible with 'restaurant' or 'shop', but it's less frequent with these. As far as I know, there's no grammatical reason for this; it's just a question of usage.
This doesn't mean it's wrong to say 'a bank' (or whatever); it just suggests that you're not thinking of them as a place to get a service as much, even though probably when you go there you will be going there for their service.
You could also use the name of the specific place or some other phrase that specifies which one you mean (e.g. 'the bank by the station').
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Liverpool's Mohamed Salah says "I would love to stay at Liverpool until the last day of my football career". Shouldn't it instead be "in Liverpool"?
Hello Jembut,
'In Liverpool' would indicate the city. 'At Liverpool' refers to the club/organisation.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello, Petter M. Why do you use "would" in your sentence? 'In Liverpool' would indicate the city. Why not just say 'In Liverpool' indicates the city?"
Hello again Crokong,
I think we've answered quite a few questions similar to this in the past so perhaps you can try to answer your own question and we'll tell you if we agree with your interpretation.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
"Would" here, I think, is conditional, but there is no conditional sentence I can I'm thinking about. "Is" sounds direct. Is my understanding correct?
I will write to you this evening. In British English, it would be wrong to omit "to" (write you). Why is "would" used here? Could "would" be replaced with "is"?
Hello Jembut,
In informal situations, people sometimes omit the 'to' here. I don't see the word 'would' in your example sentence, but you can read more about this on our 'will' and 'would' page (https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/english-grammar/will-and-would).
Hope this helps.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team