A (AN), THE: how to use articles in English

- Hey guys!

Welcome to my channel!

Today I'm gonna teach you the most common mistake

in English, which is articles,

and I forget them, I omit them

'cause I'm originally from Russia

and in Russia we don't have articles.

It's easier for Germans

because you guys have articles.

Italians have articles.

By the way, let me know in comments below

what language is your native language

and whether you have articles or not.

'Cause if you do, it's easier for you.

But again, there're two articles,

a and the, and we use a,

we use it to talk about objects

that we encounter for the first time in our speech,

for the first time in this conversation.

And we use the, we mean something specific.

So, let's start with the first rule.

Something specific is always the.

For example.

Marina, where did you get the dress

that you wore yesterday?

This is a very specific dress.

I only have one dress and I'm pretty sure

she means the dress that I was wearing yesterday

and that was the specific white dress, whatever.

So this is a very specific thing.

But if I'm asking somebody,

"Can you get me a dress?"

when you go shopping, I'm not asking

for a particular dress, I just need a dress

and whatever dress you can find

that suits me, just get it.

So, could you get me a dress

when you go shopping?

So see the differences.

In the first example, with the specific dress

I wore yesterday, I meant the dress

that I wore yesterday.

And when I'm asking to buy a random dress,

this is a dress.

Another thing to remember, we only use a,

when we talk about single objects.

So we cannot say a dresses.

This is wrong!

Don't do that.

But if a word starts with a vowel,

A, E, O, U,

okay, you know vowels, right,

we replace a with an.

An apple.

An eggplant.

An elephant.

Another general rule is

when you talk about something

for the first time, you say a.

When you mention it in your conversation

for the second time, you use the.

For example.

Yesterday I went to a party.

I mentioned it for the first time.

But in the second sentence I would say,

"The party was amazing."

'Cause I've already stated

that I will be talking about a specific party,

and in the second sentence

I'm referring to that specific party.

So it's the party now, okay?

Or another example.

Yesterday I bought an apple.

You know, just a random apple.

That apple turned out to be rotten

so I'm taking it back to the store today.

Okay.

So, first I'm not mentioning a particular apple,

I just bought an apple.

It doesn't matter which apple.

Doesn't matter if it's big,

doesn't matter if it's small,

just an apple.

But then when I'm talking that it's rotten

I already mean that apple,

that it's in my fridge, so the apple.

Okay?

However, if we are talking about an object

that is one of a kind, we always use the.

The Moon.

The Sun.

The Black Sea.

The Simpsons.

So, we know that there is only one moon,

that's why we always say the Moon.

We know that there is one sun,

so we say the Sun.

Again, we only know that there's just one family

when we're talking about we know

that we're talking about the Simpsons, right,

this is the movie.

So, whatever it's something one of a kind,

it's the.

Uncountable nouns.

What are uncountable nouns?

Porridge, oatmeal, milk.

Whatever you cannot count.

'Cause when we're talking about porridge

you cannot really count all the seeds that are there,

and when we're talking about milk

you cannot really count the cells.

Yes, you can measure volume

but that's different.

We're talking about counting.

So, uncountable nouns means

you cannot count them, right?

So with uncountable nouns

we don't use any articles.

It's always "I like oatmeal."

Can you get me some oatmeal?

Can you make some porridge for breakfast?

You use some, right?

Can I have some milk?

I drink milk for breakfast.

The only way you would be able to count milk

is by adding glasses.

So can you give me a glass of milk.

And then you have this a, okay?

But this a refers to glass, not to milk.

And the second scenario when we don't use

an article with nouns is

when we have plural countable nouns.

Bicycles, computers, cameras, bloggers.

So whenever these words appear

in a sentence we do not use any articles.

I have three computers at home.

I like watching bloggers.

I love bicycles.

But why articles are so confusing?

'Cause there're always, always, always exclusions.

For example.

There is a store in your house

and they sell specific milk.

And you want to highlight that you like

the milk from that store

'cause it's one of a kind.

You really mean that milk

and you cannot get it anywhere else.

Then you can say,

"Oh my god, I love the milk from that store!"

'Cause you're being specific.

And again, I just mentioned that with milk

we don't use any the.

But we don't use any the or a,

when we don't mention specific milk,

which is mention milk as food.

But if we mean some kind of milk,

that it's only sold in this store,

that's one block away or in your house,

say the.

Same applies to countable nouns in plural forms.

If that shop also sells apples that you love

you can say, "Oh, I love the apples from that store!

"They are the best in the world!"

And people realize that you mean specific apples

that are only sold there

and they're one of a kind.

Okay?

Please remember that.

And feel free whenever you're watching this video,

if it's confusing, feel free to stop,

feel free to open your exercise book,

rewind the video and write everything down again.

'Cause I know it's super confusing

and I know, even like super advanced students

make mistakes in articles.

So this topic is very important, it's crucial

but I'm here to help.

There is a quite similar rule for abstract nouns

and when you're talking about something in general,

you don't need an article.

For example.

Information on the internet is very useful.

So information is this abstract noun.

You don't mean any specific information.

You just mean that information

that's available to everyone on the internet

is very useful.

But again, just to compare,

when you use particular information

that you receive, "The information

that I read on Wikipedia regarding YouTube

is super useful," then you need to insert

the definite article the

because you mean some specific information.

But when you're talking about information in general,

you don't use articles at all, okay?

Never use articles with proper nouns.

Tuesday, Monday, New York.

You can distinguish those proper nouns

by the capital letter that they start with.

New York is with capital letters,

Washington D.C., Russia, London,

Tuesday, Monday, Wednesday,

February, March.

All of those nouns do not require an article.

Okay, never use articles with the names

of the countries.

Dmitrii makes this mistake all the time

and I keep correcting him.

Russia, France, Monaco.

All of those countries do not require an article

but, of course, there are exclusions to this rule.

If a country's name consists of several words.

The United Kingdom

'cause the refers to Kingdom here.

So the United Kingdom, the United States of America.

So, whenever the name consists

of several nouns you use the.

Also, no articles when you speak about languages

and remember, at the beginning of this video

I asked you to write a comment below

what language you speak,

and if you have articles in that language.

So you can say, "I speak French"

and there is no article.

I speak Russian

and there are no articles in Russian.

So we don't have any article

before the name of the language.

And the last but not the least,

when you are talking about meals

don't use articles.

I've already had lunch today.

I've already had breakfast.

Let's head out to dinner.

But again, we are just talking

about non-specific meals,

just, you know, stating that we had meal.

But, if you want to say that you are sick

from the dinner you had yesterday,

then you need the definite article

'cause you mean that specific dinner,

where you probably ate sushi

and you got food poisoning.

So, when you mean a specific dinner,

it will probably be something in the past,

you use the.

That was it from me guys.

I hope it wasn't too confusing.

I know it's, like articles are super confusing.

Feel free to re-watch the video.

Feel free to save it.

Feel free to download it or whatever.

And re-watch it later.

'Cause, you know, you're gonna get back

to this topic over and over again

'cause again, there're so many exclusions

to the rules that I've given you.

There're so many specific situations

and you just have to know about them.

But thank you so much for watching this.

I'm looking forward to reading your comments

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It's linguamarina. Thank you so much and I will see you soon

in the next videos.