Level: beginner
We use the indefinite article, a/an, with singular nouns when the listener/reader does not know exactly which one we are referring to:
Police are searching for a 14-year-old girl.
We also use it to show that the person or thing is one of a group:
She is a pupil at London Road School.
Police have been looking for a 14-year-old girl who has been missing since Friday.
Jenny Brown is a pupil at London Road School. She is 1.6 metres tall, with short, blonde hair. When she left home, she was wearing a blue jacket, a blue and white blouse, dark blue jeans and blue shoes.
Anyone who has information should contact the local police on 0800 349 781.
We do not use an indefinite article with plural nouns or uncount nouns:
She was wearing blue shoes. (plural noun)
She has short, blonde hair. (uncount noun)
- The indefinite article 1
- The indefinite article 2
- The indefinite article 3
We use a before a consonant sound:
| a banana (starts with /b/) | a university (starts with /j/) |
and an before a vowel sound:
| an orange (starts with /o/) | an hour (starts with /au/) |
Note that the choice of a or an depends on sound, not spelling.
- The indefinite article 4
Hi the LearnEnglish Team,
I have one question.
Why in the sentence "Police are searching for a 14-year-old girl" word "police" had been used without the definite article "the"?
In the next article about using "the" saying that "police" as a service must be written with "the".
Thank you for the answer
Polemnn
Hello polemnn,
It's a subtle difference. When we say 'Police are searching ...' it's not so much about a service as actual police officers out in the field looking for someone. We could also say 'The police' here, and this would refer to the police as a service, but for some reason we tend to think of the human police officers in such a case.
Hope this helps.
Best wishes,
Kirk
LearnEnglish team
Hi,
Can you please clear out my confusion on use of article a/an in below sentences :
1. She is as beautiful "a" girl as you are ever likely to meet.
2. It was so forceful "a" blow
3. He was too valuable "an" asset.
I am not fully able to digest why article is needed. For example, the 3rd sentence can be modified to "He was too valuable asset" - If I am not wrong, it conveys the same meaning.
Thanks in Advance.
Regards,
Abhay
Hi abhaykumar,
Actually, the article is necessary and without the article, the sentences are not grammatical. The article is needed because a singular noun needs a determiner, and an article is a type of determiner. The modifying phrases (e.g. so forceful) are not determiners themselves, i.e. they cannot replace the article - they just modify the noun.
Jonathan
LearnEnglish team
Hi
is there a difference when we say "The police" instead of '' Police " in this sentence "Police are searching for a 14-year-old girl.".
Hello Ahmed Hassan,
No, there's no difference.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Teacher Peter
What about these "I will study until the school starts" and "I will study until school starts". are they the same with and without the definite article before the word "school"?
Hello Ahmed Hassan,
The second sentence (without 'the') suggests that the speaker is a student at the school. The first sentence does not suggest this. They may be simply using a room which they will have to vacate when lessons begin, for example.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Mr. Peter,
Could you kindly explain why is there such as difference?
Hello Panni Nous,
...until school starts does not refer to a building, place or particular school, but rather to the beginning of the school day or year, just as 'until work starts' refers to the beginning of a period of work.
...until the school starts describes a particular school.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Nevi,
I'm not sure what your question is here! It seems like you have a pretty good grasp of the topic as your explanation of your example is correct. If you substitute 'the' for 'a' here then you would be asking about a specific and known item, not just any item.
I want a computer = any computer is fine; it doesn't have to be a particular one
I want the computer = you know which one I want; maybe it's the only one we have, or maybe it's one we've talked about already
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Nevi,
We use 'a' with singular nouns, so it refers to one item rather than more than one. It also tells us that the speaker is not talking about a particular computer. The answer to your question, therefore, is that 'a' carries both of these meanings, not just one of them.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Nevi,
In 99.9% of situations people would mean that they have one brother by saying this. In a very specific (and unusual) context in which the speaker was, for example, trying to hide the fact that they have more than one brother, it could mean that the speaker has at least one (not a particular) male sibling, but that is quite unusual. As I said, in the vast majority of situations, they would say 'I have two brothers' (or however many brothers there are) instead of 'I have a brother'.
As I said, the unusual case I mentioned is extraordinarily rare, so in general you can count on this meaning that the speaker has one brother.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello again Nevi,
I think you're looking for a grammatical rule here where it's really more the intention of the speaker which matters.
When a person says 'I need a telephone' they're generally not talking about the phone itself but rather the call: I need to call someone. The number of phones is not really in their mind. The only time you would say 'I need one phone' is when for some reason two or three or more would cause you problems for some reason.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Ahmed Imam,
I don't think we would use either construction. You need to include an adjective of some kind:
Alternatively, you could use a phrase like this:
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Ahmed Imam,
Both are possible. I don't think there's any difference in meaning so it's really a question of personal choice and linguistic background (idiolect and dialect).
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi tanipetrush,
There is no article here because we are talking about spiders in general. If we were talking about a particular spider then we would use 'a spider' for first mention and 'the spider' later (or 'spiders' and 'the spiders' for more than one spider), but for general meaning we do not use any article.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Dipak,
The phrase '...is history' is a fixed expression. It means something is done, finished or ended. It can also mean that something or someone has been defeated.
We only use 'a history' in the context of a book: this is a great history of the Roman Empire.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Ahmed Imam,
I think 'Sudan' is becoming more and more common, but you can still hear 'the Sudan'. However, this is a political question as much as a language question following the secession of South Sudan in 2011.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi dipakrgandhi,
Good question! It's because in this sentence, US is describing the other noun, passport. US isn't the main noun in the phrase. So, the article we choose depends on the main noun, passport (not on any other nouns that describe it).
Does that make sense?
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Dipak,
Yes! Exactly :)
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi dipakrgandhi,
Yes! You may have seen some examples like these.
In those examples, the meaning is 'very' or 'extremely'. This is different to, for example, She was the most valuable member of the team, which means she was the 'number one most valuable' or the absolute best.
Using the indefinite article with most in this way is a relatively formal in style. We can only use this structure with most - we can't use it with single-word superlatives (e.g. we can't say 'It was a best meal').
About your sentence, it should be most of the time (without the before most, and with time instead of times).
Does that make sense?
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello knownman,
There are several possibilities here, depending on whether you are using a title or a description of a position:
This is his title
This is his position; there is only one such position.
This is his position; there are several such positions; he is one of several.
As the word 'professor' is capitalised, I assume the write was using it as a title, so no article makes sense.
'Head of Department' functions in a similar way.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Ahmed Imam,
The second version (with 'the') is correct. Railway networks, including underground networks, usually take the definite article unless we are dealing with the name of a company:
but
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello emiliano_81,
Both 'met for coffee' and 'met for a coffee' are possible in this context.
When we are talking about meals we do not use an article, so we can say 'meet for breakfast', 'meet for lunch' etc. 'Meet for coffee' is similar to this.
As you say, we can also say 'a coffee' with the meaning 'a cup of coffee', and it is also correct here.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Ike Kyoshi,
In 1, 'coffee' is an uncount noun, whereas in 2 it is a count noun. The noun 'drink' is normally a count noun (as in 4). It can also be used as an uncount noun, but we don't use it sentences like 3. There is no obvious rule that explains this -- it's just the way we use the uncount noun 'drink'.
Hope this helps you make sense of it.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Ike Kyoshi,
I don't think it's only related to the noun being countable or uncountable. For example, 'wine' is similar to coffee in that we can say 'I'll have a glass of white wine' or 'I'll have a white wine', but we wouldn't say 'Let's meet for wine' in the way that we can say 'Let's meet for coffee'.
I think the explanation is that certain activities can be used not only to represent a particular action (in this case, drinking something), but also to represent a social event. 'Meet for coffee' describes a social situation which is something of a tradition. It's similar to 'meet for lunch', I would say. As such, its use is rooted not in grammar but rather in social norms and traditions.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Dipak Gandhi,
Exception is a countable noun and not an abstract concept, so we would use a plural form if we wanted to generalise. The same applies to rule:
The rules for article use with general meaning are quite complex:
>> a + singular countable noun <<
we can use this with general meaning when we are talking about something which defines the group. For example:
In other words, being an impressive sight is one of the characteristics of an elephant; if we saw an animal and it was not impressive then we could be fairly sure that it was not an elephant. We are talking about any elephant here - it is true of them all.
>> the + singular noun <<
we can use this with general meaning when we are talking about our image or concept of the noun. For example:
Here we are not talking about a real elephant, but rather the concept of 'elephant' in our heads.
>> no article + plural countable noun or uncountable noun <<
we use this to talk about what is normal or typical of a type. It may or may not be true of all individuals but it is typical of most. For example:
Here we are talking about the average height of Swedes, not any particular person or concept.
The distinctions are subtle but sometimes can be important. For example, we can say with general meaning:
Whales are in danger of becoming extinct.
The whale is in danger of becoming extinct.
However, we cannot say:
This is because being in danger of becoming extinct may be true but it does not define the whale.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team