Articles

Risk message or caution alert on document or important data content comment on mobile phone flat cartoon illustration

Let's start this lesson with an exercise! Analyze the following sentences and correct them, all of them have errors😜:
  1. I've been to most dangerous places in El Salvador.
  2. It's relaxing to see sun when setting.
  3. Amazon River is beautiful.
  4. There was a rabbit in Ana's garden; it was caught but minutes later, rabbit escaped.
  5. The children are the future of the world.
  6. The sugar in large quantity can be dangerous for our health.
  7.  Some people believe the love is more important than the money.
  8. I need an advice.
  9. My father is accountant and my mom teacher.
Was it hard to find them? Did you think some of them were OK at first? You are not sure of some of you answers yet, are you?

All of those sentences have errors related to articles, they may be seen correct because those are the common mistakes we make when we are not familiar with article rules. I will explain them to you the way I do  it with my students, my advice is to learn each use by heart💛!



Articles are words we use to modify nouns and to specify their grammatical definiteness. The correct use of articles is one of the most confusing points in grammar because we use them in Spanish all the time; luckily, most article errors/mistakes do not affect the message we want to convey. However, it is always better to improve our speech.

There are two kinds of articles: Indefinite (A/an) and definite (The).

We use A / AN (Indefinite articles) with singular nouns and occupations. Do not forget their use:

  • A before singular nouns beginning with consonant SOUND.
  • AN before singular nouns beginning with vowel SOUND. 
Check the following example:
I used to have an Mp3 player back in the days. M is the letter you see but its sound is /em/ , it begins with a vowel sound.👂

Antigravity technology with elements


We use THE (Definite article) as follows:
  • When the speaker and listener know what they are referring to.
  • Unique things
  • Some geographical names: Direction regions, group of islands/lakes, union of countries/states, seas, rivers, gulfs, deserts, republics, poles, oceans, canals and channels.
  • Superlative adjectives
Pronunciation rules for THE
Pronounce THE as /ðə/ when the following word begins with CONSONANT SOUND.
Seeing a snake has been the most frightening experience so far.

Pronounce THE as /ðiː/ when the following word begins with VOWEL SOUND.
The architect you hired wanted to address some issues he found in the blueprint.

Designer concept illustration


We use NO (ZERO) article as follows:
  • Generalizations
  • Sports and games
  • Before the name of countries (Except with those ones which have it in their name such as The United States, The Philippines, etc.)
  • Meals (Breakfast, dinner, lunch)
  • Languages
  • Uncountable nouns
  • Abstract nouns
People have finally understood health is more important than money.

Illustration of healthy lifestyle
As you have probably noticed👀, there is no answer key to the first exercise. Double-check your answers now that you have read about articles and their rules, I hope you have learned something you did not know before😉!

💻 If you want to assess your knowledge on articles, take the following test 
https://www.englishpage.com/articles/articles-final-test.htm This website also gives you a deeper explanation on the different uses articles have. 


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