253. Articles With Common Nouns

The English language has three articles: a, an, the.
We put the articles next to nouns in sentences.
Whenever you see a, an, or the, you know that a noun is coming next.
Articles act like noun markers.

I washed the car.
Mom found a dime on the sidewalk.
Bob gave me an umbrella when it started raining.

The articles a and an are used with nouns that are single things. Use an when the noun begins with a vowel (a,e,i,o,u)
a dog, a cat, a baseball
an apple, an orange, an elephant

We can use the for any noun – either single or plural, starting with a vowel or not.
the dog, the cats, the baseball, the apples, the orange, the elephant

We use the article the to talk about a specific object.
A dog is any old dog. When we say the dog, we mean one particular dog.
We call the a definite article because we use it to mean a definite object.

Sometimes an adjective (a describing word) goes between the article and the noun, like this:
Our teacher gave us a hard test.
The word hard is an adjective describing the test, but we still used the article a with the noun test.

Here are more sentences with an adjective between the article and the noun:
I read a good book last week.
A book.
The rain came in the open window.
The window.

English has three articles – a, an, the. We use the three articles with common nouns.

  • It’s your turn. Choose an article for the blank in each of these sentences. I have __ little bird. I keep __ bird in __ cage. Did you use the articles a and the ? Good for you!