Articles in English - 5 Levels of Difficulty

Hi, I’m Molly. Welcome to Oxford  Online English! In this lesson,  

you can test your ability to use  articles: ‘a’, ‘an’ and ‘the’.

Here’s how this lesson works.

There are five levels. Each level is  more difficult than the previous one.

Level one is beginner. Levels two  

to four are intermediate. Level five  is high intermediate to advanced.

If you’re not a beginner, start at level two!  

At each level, you can see what you need  to focus on if you have difficulties.

Got it? Let’s start with level one. 

Look at five sentences. Each  sentence has a gap. You can put ‘a’,  

‘an’, ‘the’ or nothing in the gap. Pause the video and find your answers now! 

Ready? Let’s see the answers together. 

Use ‘a’ or ‘an’ after ‘there is’,  when you’re talking about *one* thing. 

Use ‘a’ or ‘an’ to say what someone  is, for example to say someone’s job.

Remember that you *can’t* use ‘a’ or  ‘an’ with a plural noun. Use nothing. 

Don’t use ‘a’ or ‘the’ to talk about things in  general. If you say ‘I like strawberries’, you  

mean that you like *all* strawberries, in general. Use ‘a’ or ‘an’ to mean ‘one of many’. This is  

a common way to use ‘a’ or ‘an’, so  it’s useful to remember this idea.

Here, there are many possible questions you  *could* ask, but you just want to ask one. 

Use ‘the’ when it’s obvious which  thing you mean. You often use ‘the’  

in this way to talk about things  around you which you can see and touch.

There are many windows in the world, but  if someone asks you to close *the* window,  

you probably know which window they mean.

Now, let’s move on to level two. 

Here are your sentences for level two. Here, we’ll focus on when to use ‘the’ or not.

Some of these sentences are missing ‘the’. Some  are correct. Your job is to decide which sentences  

are incorrect, and add ‘the’ where needed.  Pause the video and think about it. 

Could you do it? Take more time if you want! OK, let’s see the answers. 

In number one, ‘fish’ is general – you  aren’t talking about some specific fish.

However, you *could* say ‘the  smoked fish’. Do you know when? 

You could say ‘the smoked fish’ if you  were talking about food from a menu. You  

often use this when ordering in a restaurant.  For example: ‘I’ll have the salmon, please.’  

In this case, it’s something  specific. ‘The smoked fish’  

means ‘the smoked fish which is on  your menu and which you serve here.’ 

Meals – breakfast, lunch and dinner  – don’t usually have an article.

Use ‘the’ before a superlative adjective,  like ‘tallest’, ‘most’ or ‘best’. 

In many phrases, you just have to remember whether  to use ‘the’ or not. Why do you say ‘on TV’,  

without ‘the’, but ‘on the Internet’,  with ‘the’? There’s no real logic to this;  

you just need to remember. Try to learn  phrases like this as whole chunks,  

so you don’t have to think about whether to use  ‘the’ or not when you’re using them in speech. 

If you’re talking about people in  general, then you don’t use ‘the’.  

For example: ‘Most people in the  UK live in houses, not apartments.’

But, if you’re talking about a specific group of  people, then you need ‘the’. That’s why you say  

‘most of *the* people in my class’ – you’re  talking about a specific, limited group of people. 

When you’re talking about  transport, you need ‘the’  

if you use the verb ‘take’: take the bus,  take the train, take the subway, and so on.

However, *don’t* use ‘the’ after ‘by’: go by bus,  get there by train, travel by subway, and so on. 

Finally, you often need to use ‘the’  with places in a city, like shops,  

supermarkets, banks and so on.

Let’s think about something;  look at two sentences. 

Both are possible, but what’s the difference? Sentence number one, with ‘the’,  

means that you know which post office  you’re going to and where it is.

The second sentence, with ‘a’, means  that there are many post offices, and  

maybe you haven’t decided which  one you’re going to stop at.

When you talk about places in a  city, you have a specific place  

in mind. That’s why you often need ‘the’.

Got it? In the next two sections, you’ll see more  details about when to use ‘the’, and when not to.

One of the biggest challenges with using ‘the’  accurately is different kinds of name. There  

are many rules to remember, and they aren’t  very consistent. Let’s practise this now! 

Each sentence has two spaces. The question is:  

do you need ‘the’ or not? Pause  the video and think about it. 

Ready? Let’s check! 

Many building names, like cinemas, museums,  theatres and other famous buildings  

have names with ‘the’. The Odeon  is a well-known cinema chain.

Street names don’t use ‘the’. 

There’s a confusing rule with islands: if you’re  talking about a group of islands, you need ‘the’,  

but for an individual island, you don’t use ‘the’.  

So, you say ‘the Philippines’ but ‘Luzon’. You  say ‘the Seychelles’ but ‘Hawaii’, without ‘the’.

There’s something similar with  mountains and mountain ranges.  

If you’re talking about a mountain  range, like ‘the Himalayas’,  

you need ‘the’. But for a single mountain,  like ‘Mount Everest’, you don’t use ‘the’. 

Use ‘the’ with names of rivers, seas and  oceans. What about lakes? No ‘the’ for lakes!

This is the kind of time you might be  feeling annoyed with the English language.  

Why are there all these rules?  Why don’t they make sense?

First, don’t worry about these things too  much. It’s good to speak and write accurately,  

but it’s also not the end of the world if you  make a mistake with ‘the’ in these situations.

Second, learning language in chunks  can really help here. If you learn the  

sentence ‘Luzon is the largest island in the  Philippines’, and you remember the sentence,  

you don’t have to think about  when to use ‘the’ or not.

Here’s a rule which is useful: if a  name has a place as part of the name,  

it probably won’t have ‘the’. Stansted is a place,  so the name ‘Stansted airport’ doesn’t have ‘the’.

Like countries, names of counties,  states, provinces and so on  

mostly don’t have ‘the’. Essex is  a county in the east of England.

Then, if you learn in this way, you have many  examples in your head of when to use ‘the’  

or not. This can build your  instinct for what’s correct,  

which makes it easier to decide when  to use ‘the’ or not in new sentences.

In number five, you can see another example  of a name with a place: Edinburgh University.  

It doesn’t use ‘the’.

But, if a name has ‘of’ in it, it generally will  need ‘the’, even if it includes a place name.

And, sometimes there are two names for the same  thing! You can say Edinburgh University, or  

the University of Edinburgh. The first  one is more common, but both are possible.

OK? Remember that you might need to review  a section more than once to get it. Also,  

remember that these five-level lessons  are designed to help you find out  

what you know and what you don’t know. If you  find a section difficult, that can help you  

to understand where your weaknesses are,  and what you need to spend more time on. 

Here, you’re going to see a topic  which is – in our experience – one  

of the most confusing for English  learners relating to using ‘the’.

Before you see your sentences for  level four, look at an example. 

Here, are we talking about *one* orangutan?

No, here, we mean *all* orangutans.  We’re talking about orangutans generally.  

So, why use a singular noun with ‘the’?  Why not use a plural noun and say:  

‘Orangutans are found in Malaysia and Indonesia.’? Well, you can. Both sentences are possible. 

Using ‘the’ here means that you’re talking about  a group or category. It can be confusing, because  

usually you use ‘the’ to talk about a specific  thing, but here ‘the’ has a general meaning.

Let’s practise this a little more.  Look at your sentences for this level. 

So, what do you have to do?  

Focus on the highlighted phrases  with ‘the’. Some of these phrases  

can be replaced with a plural noun, without ‘the’,  like in the example about orangutans you just saw.  

Your job is to find the sentences where this  is possible, and change the noun phrase.  

You might need to add some words. Pause the  video, take your time, and think about it!

Ready? Confused? Let’s do one together.  Here’s the answer for number one only.

Here, it’s possible to use a plural noun with the  same meaning, like this. If you want more time to  

think about the others, pause the video now. Done? Let’s see the remaining answers. 

In sentences two and three,  ‘rich’ and ‘Swiss’ are adjectives.  

You can use ‘the’ plus an adjective to talk  about a group or category in general. If  

you want to use a plural noun instead,  you need to add the noun – ‘people’. 

In sentence five, you can’t use a  plural noun. With musical instruments,  

you can only use ‘the’ plus a singular  noun to talk about the category in general.

Again, if you’re questioning your life choices  in watching this video, don’t worry about it.  

Many English learners find this difficult,  and need time to understand it in depth.

On the other hand, these aren’t strange  sentences or rules that you only need  

sometimes. These rules and topics are relevant  for speaking and writing in almost any situation,  

so they’re worth spending time on if you  want to communicate accurately and clearly!

OK, you’re nearly done – one more level to go!

This is it – level five – the  hardest questions we could make.

Here are five sentences. 

Four of these sentences have mistakes; one is  correct. Can you find the correct sentence,  

and correct the mistakes in the other  four? Pause the video and try it now! 

Difficult? Here’s a clue: you might need to  forget about the rules you know. These sentences  

test your knowledge of exceptions and  unusual cases which don’t fit the general  

rules about using articles. Finished? Let’s look together. 

Sentence one is correct. How do you explain this? Normally, you don’t use articles with people’s  

names. However, here, you’re talking about  multiple people who have the same name,  

and contrasting them. ‘The Jamie I was telling you  about’ is specific, and needs ‘the’ to show this.  

‘a Jamie in my class’ is one of many Jamies, but  not *the* Jamie we’re interested in right now. 

In most cases, you say ‘the future’. In  sentence two, you’re talking about one of many  

possible futures, so you use ‘a’. This  is common when you use an adjective  

with ‘future’: ‘a bright future’,  ‘a difficult future’, and so on. 

Again, sentence three shows  you an exception to a rule.  

You don’t usually use articles with days of the  week, but if you’re talking about which day a  

specific date falls on, then you can use ‘a’.  You also need an article with days of the week  

if you use certain adjectives,  like ‘following’ or ‘previous’. 

Sentence four is a good example  of how inconsistent the ‘rules’  

are here. You need ‘the’ for the hotel name, and  for the floor number, but you *don’t* use ‘the’  

with the room number. Don’t try to  look for the logic – there isn’t any. 

In sentence five, it would be easy  to think that the two noun phrases  

– ‘first/second half of the year’  – should have the same article.  

However, in this case there is some  logic to why they’re different.

In the first one, you say ‘a  terrible first half’ because,  

although there’s only one first half of the  year, there are many ways it could have gone.  

It could have been good, or amazing,  or average, or bad, and so on.

In the second one, there’s no adjective.  Here, you use regular rules – there’s  

only one second half of the year, so you use  ‘the’. The adjective makes all the difference.

That’s all. We hope you  found the lesson interesting!

See you next time!