Welcome back.
This is lesson two of my series on
articles.
If you haven’t seen the first lesson, you
will find the link to the full playlist below.
Alright, in this lesson, I will show you 13 uses of
the definite article – ‘the’.
As always, there’s a quiz at the end to test
your understanding.
Use number one is something we discussed in
the previous lesson.
This is also the most important
use.
Use 'the' to talk about a person or thing known to
your listener.
For example, "Julie has a nine-year-old son.
The boy wants to be an astronaut."
Here, I first say 'a nine-year old son' because
you don't know him yet.
But once I have introduced him in the sentence, I
then say 'The boy' because he is now known to you.
Here's another example: "Can you answer the
phone?"
If I say this to you, then there's probably
a phone ringing somewhere.
So the phone is already known to you, and I say
'the phone'.
And finally, "This is the watch that my sister gave
me for my birthday."
This example is a little
different because if I stop with "This is the
watch" - you will be confused because you don't
know the watch.
But then if I give you more
information about the watch - it's the watch
that my sister gave me for my birthday - so that way
it becomes known to you.
Let's now move on to use number two: use 'the' with
unique things – that is, where there is only one of
something.
For example, we say ‘the sun’ (because
there’s only one sun).
Similarly, ‘the moon’, ‘the sky’, ‘the world’,
‘the universe’ and so on.
Here are a couple of sentences: "Everyone knows
that the sun rises in the east."
and "Rahul has traveled all over the
world."
Some other things we consider unique are ‘the
government’, 'the police', 'the Internet' and so on.
As in these sentences: “The police are
investigating a murder in our neighborhood.”
and “Almost everybody uses the
Internet today.”
OK the next use is with some words referring to
nature or the environment in a general way.
These are words such as the
countryside (which means rural or village areas),
the town, the mountains, the weather etc.
For example, "My son enjoys
spending time in the countryside."
It means my son likes to spend time
relaxing in rural areas.
Here are a couple more sentences: "We're going to
take a trip to the mountains."
and "I love the weather in Los
Angeles."
Use number four is talking about objects of common
experience like in the expressions that you see
on the screen.
We say that these are objects of
common experience because we all experience these in
our lives.
Have a look at this example: "I met an
interesting man at the park yesterday."
You may not know which park but it
doesn't matter - the park is common experience.
In the same way "Did you read the newspaper this
morning?"
I don't care which newspaper you read,
I just want to know if read one today.
Here's another example: "Darren
likes to sing in the shower."
We also use 'the ' with some types of media
(including the word 'media' itself) and also
forms of entertainment.
For example, "I don't listen to the radio a lot
these days."
or “Pooja is at the movies with her
friends."
Note that 'at the movies' means at a
movie theatre.
But it's important to note that TV doesn't work this
way.
You can use 'the' with TV if you mean a
television set.
Like "Will you help me move the TV?"
But if you mean television as a medium, then you say
'on TV' - as in "I saw a documentary on TV today."
Not 'on the TV'.
It's just a crazy rule in English.
Let's move on to use number five now.
Use 'the' with some time
expressions.
You see these on the screen - we always
use 'the' in these expressions.
For example, "Kids hate getting up early in the
morning.", "A friend of mine got married the day
before yesterday."
and "We love to go swimming in the
summer."
We also say ‘the past’, ‘the present’ and ‘the
future’ probably because there's only one past,
present and future.
Like in this sentence: "We must
learn our lessons from the past and work towards the
future."
'The' is also found in time expressions like ‘the
eighteenth century’, 'the 1960s' (or simply 'the
60s') and so on.
For example, "This house was
built by my grandfather in the sixties."
Now you have to be a little careful with time
expressions because there are many that should be
used without articles.
You see some of these on the
screen.
We will discuss these more in the next
lesson when we talk about where to use no article.
The next use is superlative forms.
These are expressions like ‘the
best’, ‘the worst’, ‘the biggest’, ‘the smallest’
and so on.
For example, "Mrs. Benson is the best
teacher I've ever had.", "Liechtenstein is one of
the smallest countries in the world."
and "In my opinion, family is the
most important thing in life."
Remember that these are all fixed – you must
use ‘the’ in all superlative forms.
Alright, here's use number seven.
Use 'the' with words such as 'first',
'second', 'third', 'previous', 'next' and so
on when they are used as adjectives.
That means we put 'the' when these words appear
before a noun.
For example, "Neil Armstrong
was the first person to walk on the moon.", "When
is the next presidential election?", "Hurry up or
you're going to miss the last bus."
"Is it important for friends to
have the same interests?".
"Rachel is the only one here who has a driver's
license."
But remember that when any of these words are not
adjectives, that is they don't come before a noun,
we normally don't use 'the'.
Like in these sentences: “Habib came
third in the race.”
– there’s no ‘the’ before
‘third’ because it’s not modifying a noun, and “I
only have four cookies left” – ‘only’ is an
adverb here, so no ‘the’.
Use number eight is with names of musical
instruments.
We say ‘the guitar’, ‘the violin’,
‘the piano’, 'the saxophone' and so on.
For example, "Heidi plays the
guitar."
or "Is the violin easy to learn?"
So remember to put 'the'
before names of musical instruments.
In the same way, to talk about scientific
inventions, we often use ‘the’.
For example, “The telephone was invented by
Alexander Graham Bell.” and “Some say that the
Internet is the most important invention of the
20th century.”
The next use of ‘the’ is when we talk about body
parts.
Now, usually we just use possessive forms
like my, your, his, her etc. with these.
For example: “She held my hand
and told me she loved me.”
But when we want to talk about something bad
happening to a body part, we use ‘the ’: “The
suspect was shot in the back while running from
the police.”
Notice I didn’t say ‘in his back’,
I said ‘in the back.’
Similarly, “I was standing by the side of the road
and a tennis ball hit me in the eye.”
So we can say in the eye, on the nose,
on the head, in the stomach, in the arm, in
the leg etc.
Use number eleven is referring to place names.
Now, normally, we use NO ARTICLE when we refer to
names of places.
We say Canada, India, South
Africa, Paris, New Delhi, San Francisco and so on.
As in these sentences: "I'm going to Canada on a
business trip next week."
or "Vincent lives in New Delhi."
But some places have 'the' as part of the name.
These can be countries like the
United States or the Netherlands, or it can be
regions such as the Middle East or the Baltics.
In these cases, you have to
put 'the' in their names.
There are many other place names that have 'the' in
them.
You see a list on your screen.
So with names of seas and oceans,
rivers, mountain ranges, island groups and deserts,
we use 'the'.
This is also true for names of certain
types of buildings like hotels, theaters and
museums.
If you want, stop the video and have a look
at these.
Here are some examples: "Oman is a country in the
Middle East."
You see that there's no 'the' before
'Oman' but we say 'the Middle East.’, "The Alps
are the largest mountain range in Europe.”, “We
stayed at the Ritz Carlton hotel on our last visit to
Singapore.”
and “Can you get us tickets to the
concert at the Sydney Opera House this weekend?”
Let's move on to use number twelve - this is
using 'the' with family names.
Now if you watched the previous lesson, you
know that we don't use 'the' with names of
people.
However, this is an exception.
We use 'the' + a family name in the
plural form to refer to the family as a single
group.
For example, "We live next door to the Smiths -
they're great neighbors!"
This means, the family name is "Smith" - they
might have "John Smith", "Mary Smith" and so on in
the family.
But we make the family name plural to
refer to the entire family.
Here's another example: "The Garcias have
invited us to go on a picnic with them this
weekend."
Here, what's the family name?
It's 'Garcia' - when we make it plural,
we say 'the Garcias'.
Alright, let’s now turn to our final use of ‘the’ –
this is using word ‘the’ to generalize, meaning to
refer to people or things generally.
We normally do this with ‘the’ + a
singular countable noun that represents a group.
For example, “The small business owner faces more
competition today than ever before.”
Here, I’m not referring to a
specific business owner but small business owners
generally.
In fact I could say “Small business owners
face more competition today than ever before.”
– it has the same meaning.
Here’s another example – “The blue whale is the
largest animal on the planet.”
I could also say “Blue whales are the
largest animals on the planet.”
It’s also very common to use the + an adjective to
refer to a group.
We do this commonly in these
expressions: the rich, the poor, the unemployed, the
elderly etc.
The meaning is ‘rich people’, ‘poor
people’, ‘unemployed people’, ‘elderly people’
and so on.
Here’s an example sentence: “Many people say
that the government must create more job
opportunities for the unemployed.”
meaning ‘for unemployed people’.
We also use the same form to refer to certain
nationalities that you see on the screen.
For example, “The Japanese are
very polite people.”
Notice here that when I say ‘the Japanese’, I’m
referring to the Japanese people, not the Japanese
language.
It’s the same thing with all the other
nationalities here.
Alright, if you’re ready, it’s now time for a quiz
to see if you can use the definite article ‘the’
correctly.
On the screen, there are eight sentences.
In each sentence, I want you to
put ‘the’ wherever necessary.
OK, stop the video, try the exercise,
then play the video and check.
OK, here are the answers.
You can stop the video and check them with your
answers if you like.
In the comments section, let
me know how you many got correct.
If you’re not sure about any of these,
feel free to ask me in the comments and I will help
you out.
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