hello everyone how are you today
This is Marc, I'm doing just great thanks for
asking: The students weren't paying
attention to the lesson
Joshua got a postcard from a faraway country
In this lesson we're going to talk about
definite and indefinite articles so stay tuned.
Let me start by saying that if you think you
know everything about this lesson you're
wrong I'm going to talk about definite
and indefinite article in a very
detailed way so let's start with "the"
We use "the" and pronounce "the" with consonant
sounds and not consonant letter what do I
mean by that
ok let's look at car K is a consonant sound
so the car, the boy, etc consonant sounds and not
consonant letters
let's take an example of a word that
starts with a vowel but it's pronounced with a consonant sound
the University the European Union so these
two start with the sound J this J is a consonant sound
now how do we pronounce it with vowels ?
well "the" exam the hour and in this case
the word starts with that vowel ok ?
the exam and obviously we have H here but
the H is mute, so we don't pronounce it so the
the hour vowel sound sorry
now we also use it to stress
something for example the flower I gave you last
week died, if you want to stress that flower
the flower, now I have eight rules
that we're going to talk about, so the first
one
you can place the definite article THE with any noun
but you need to have already mentioned it
for example the boy I told you about
is sick
ok so the boy, the other person knows who
I'm talking about
so that boy, the boy talked about
ok so number two, rule number two when
referring to one specific person thing
or group for example the Sun the Earth
the Colosseum in this case, ok the Colosseum, etc so it's specific
It's only one number three, to refer to living
things in singular form, so the home of
the buffalo is America so the group of
animals, the potato comes from the new world for
example, potato in singular and so but we
here we need the group of potatoes obviously, now
for the fourth rule giving more details
about the noun by adding an adjective so the small
church in Rome is very beautiful
the bald man just fell off the ladder, for example
the bald and small are adjectives. The fifth rule
that want to talk about it with general
determiners, so fuel little many other
etc the few who arrived late got a bad mark
for example, the few before few many little, other
now number six with one, ones, and
numbers Mary wanted the red one with a
the red one that one
Number seven with plural countries so the United
States of America the Maldives etc, so with
plural countries. Now with your geographical
names this is the last one the Atlantic
Ocean
so for example with oceans and seas the
Mediterranean, etc. the Gulf of Mexico so with bays,
gulfs, etc. with rivers the Nile, the Amazon, etc
now we groups in this case with groups of
lakes the Great Lakes but we say we don't
use with Lake Ontario we don't say the
lake ontario Lake Ontario without
article. The Himalayas, the Andes, so it's a group of
mountains so if you want to talk about
Everest, you just don't say the Everest
you say Everest, the name of the mountain the Gobi
desert, so with deserts
I noted that with single lakes or islands
mountains we don't use the but if you
want to be specific for example the isle
of man you can say the because
its that specific island but for example
Australia that is a continent and it's an
island, we don't use that at the
beginning or Greenland for example now
let's talk about the indefinite article
a or an we use a before consonant sounds
so like I said a university so the /J/
here is a vowel but the sound it's a /J/
So it's a consonant sound, so a university a book
etc now an before vowel sounds so an hour, the H is
mute like I said before, so an hour, an apple so this
A is a vowel sound so it would be
something like this is a vowel sound an
apple etc, you have many examples now I
listed five rules that I want to talk about
with you
so the first time you mention something
you need to use the indefinite article
A or AN, so a postcard from a faraway country I
said in my example so this is
the first time I mentioned the postcard and the faraway
country so the second rule adding more
information to the noun so for
example an adjective so Spanish tycoon
Spanish would be the adjective tycoon be the
noun
A Spanish tycoon another example or the third
rule is with professions so an English
teacher like me and English teacher in
this case we have also the adjective
English so I'm a teacher but I'm an
English teacher or a lawyer so with
professional number fourth rule when using
one individual person or thing to make a
general statement about all the people
or things of that type, so for example and
an adolescent generally eats more than an
adult so an adolescent and an adult
a monkey in this case we have
the animals monkeys and I specified a monkey
is more intelligent than a turtle
I specified one but I refer to the whole the group of
monkeys and turtles the fifth rule and last rule
with singular nouns which refer to just
one thing for example a full moon was
lighting up a dark sky so singular nouns
so full moon and this specifies only the moon so
a full moon was lighting up a dark
sky. The sky is only one and it was dark in
this case now let's recap. I've listed eight rules
to use with the definite article THE so watch the lesson
again if you don't remember it. I've listed five
different rules for the indefinite
article A or AN. Remember how to use them and
with what words to use A or AN. Well that's
it for today I hope you enjoyed the lesson
thank you very much for watching if you
haven't subscribed to my channel you may
do so by clicking subscribe and if you
have any questions comments or if you
want to give your own example type it
under this video, Enjoy your day and see you next week.
Take care !