User:Tony1/How to use "the" and "a" in English

Countries in which English is the majority language (dark blue) and an official but minority language (light blue)

UNDER CONSTRUCTION. IT'S IN A MESS. DO NOT USE YET Non-native speakers: the English Wikipedia needs YOU. Globally, non-native speakers of English far outnumber the natives, and hold a vast repository of information that can enrich the English Wikipedia. In many cases, it's different information from what natives are likely to know. But you probably already know that English is obsessed with sets and subsets, and to write proper English, you need to be able to use the grammatical "articles": "the" and "a" (and what we call "article blank") to experess sets and subsets – for just about every noun you use. "Articles" in the grammatical sense are quite different from the "articles" you edit on Wikipedia.

There are three ways you will benefit from learning how to use these pesky little words correctly:

readers and listeners will no longer need to make an effort to understand you, even if they have partially adapted;
getting sets and subsets right will pay huge dividends in all walks of life where you use English.

The horrible truth is that each noun will require you to ask three basic questions about it. At first, these questions will take time, but as you become more practised, you'll automatise this task; eventually, you won't even have to think about it. This page will set you on a course to such ease of use by providing exercises to help you to acquire the appropriate skills. The three questions are:

What is the basic context (set or subset)?
Is the noun "countable", and is it singular or plural?
Does the noun have special rules for articles?

We start with the first question, which is conceptually the most difficult.

Recognising sets and subsets

English is obsessed with sets and subsets. Every noun in a text will fall into one of three basic contexts. This noun will refer to either:

A – The whole set (all or any of it, all of them – everywhere or anywhere)
B – An undefined subset (one of many, some of many (or the exact identity is unknown or unspecified)
C – An exact subset (exactly this, exactly these, or exactly this type of thing)

First, we'll present you with correct sentences and ask you to determine which of these contexts is involved. Here's what to do:

First, click on [Show] to the right of "The question" and try to determine the answer.
Click on [Show] to display the answer.

All you will need to decide is whether the noun, or "thing" at issue (coloured and bold face) is A, B or C. Don’t be concerned about which article is used; at this stage, all that matters is that you can distinguish the three basic contexts – A, B or C. Remember, these examples are all correct.

Exercise 1.1

The question

At school, we were taught that power consumption is measured in kilowatt hours.

Hint

Think about the noun, "power consumption": here, is it:

A – The whole, all of it, everywhere?
B – A subset of all power consumption, where the exact subset is not identified? or
C – An exact subset of power consumption?

The answer

A – all power consumption, everywhere.

Exercise 1.2

The question

Around the side of your house is a box that shows the power consumption in kilowatt hours.

The answer

C – an exact subset of power consumption. Here, the power consumption refers not to a general concept, but to a specific measurement: the power consumed by a particular house over a particular period.

Exercise 1.3

The question

Put on sunscreen if it's a sunny day.

The answer

B – A subset of all sunscreen; not suncreen in a particular bottle or tube, or a particular type of sunscreen, or sunscreen we've already heard about in the text. But not all the sunscreen in the world, or you'd be swimming in a huge tank of it. So it's an undefined subset of it all.

Exercise 1.4

The question

kamal on sunscreen if it's a sunny day.

[OK, now the other noun in this sentence.]

The answer

B – Indefinite subset. One day of many, as long as it's sunny. We don't know exactly which sunny day, even though sunny days seem to be an exact subset of all days.

Exercise 1.5

The question

The recipe calls for unsalted butter.

The answer

A – Whole set. Any unsalted butter, anywhere. Clearly, unsalted butter hasn't yet been specified in the text.

Exercise 1.6

The question

Add the unsalted butter into the pre-heated pan.

The answer

C – EXACTLY THIS. Exactly this unsalted butter. Here, "the" means that we've already been told that unsalted butter is required; same for the pre-heated pan, which can't be the first mention, or it would be "a pre-heated pan".

Exercise 1.7

The question

The recipe calls for unsalted butter.

[Still in the kitchen! Now the other noun.]

The answer

C – EXACTLY THIS. The recipe must be in the background as something obviously in the context: either we've been introduced to the fact that this is a kitchen, or someone is cooking, or the recipe has already been mentioned in the text. We know about it already, through common sense or explicit information.]

Exercise 1.8

The question

The dolphin lives in family groups.

The answer

A – ALL OR ANY. All dolphins, everywhere. (Even though "the dolphin" is singular, this singular is a model to represent all dolphins). Here's a simple test for "all or any": you can substitute "[plural noun] everywhere" and it works. So here, "Dolphins everywhere live in family groups." Either singular or plural can be used in this sense.

Exercise 1.9

The question

A professor is a highly educated person.

The answer

A – ALL OR ANY. All professors, everywhere. Same deal as the dolphins. Yes, it's strange to use the singular, and just to confuse things, here, "a" is used instead of "the". Still a model for all of them (professors).

Exercise 1.10

The question

We'd be glad if you brought cakes to the picnic.

The answer

B – NOT ALL. Some cakes of many – perhaps eight of the millions of cakes in the world.

Exercise 1.11

The question

We invited the students to attend the meeting.

The answer

C – EXACTLY. These students exactly – particular individuals the reader will know about already from the context.

Recognising wrongly used articles for the context

Having learnt how to recognise the three basic contexts in correct examples, we'll go to the next step: reading sentences that may be correct or incorrect, to learn how to spot where the article is wrong for the context. To do this, we need to familiarise you with a few facts.

Three, not two articles

Although we've talked only of a/an ("I see a dog", "He boiled an egg") and the ("I live in the third house"), there's another article that is known as "article-blank"; that is, it functions by the absence of an article before the noun ("Children love ice-cream").

º, a/an, or the

The "of" rule

""Weird Al" Yankovic parodies THE pop and rock music of the late 1970s and early 1980s, and satirizes [but not THE here ... ] American culture and experiences of the same time period."

Exercise ?a

Where is the nominal group in this sentence?

We will initially address separation of virus particles from less complex fluids.

Here is the nominal group

We will initially address separation of virus particles from less complex fluids.

Where is the "head" of this nominal group?

Here is the "head"

We will initially address separation of virus particles from less complex fluids.

The head of the nominal group is green.

Is there a post-modifier?

We will initially address separation of virus particles from less complex fluids.

Yes, it's what comes after the head—here, six words.

So what's wrong with the grammar?

Because there's' a post-modifier (dark red), you must add "the", to show that the separation is of a specific type, and not a general concept or action:

We will initially address the separation of virus particles from less complex fluids.