Hi, guys! Welcome to Series English! My name is Antonia Romaker
and today we are going to talk about articles once again!
So this is part two of my overview.
In these two videos I tell you everything about articles:
all the basic principles and rules.
In part one I already told you about articles in general
and the indefinite article 'a' or 'an'.
In part two today we'll talk about the definite article
and cases when we do not use any articles.
So cases when we just skip the articles.
So let's get cracking!
And first we are going to cover the definite article.
The. When do we use it? We use it when we talk about exact things,
certain, understandable from the contest, specific.
Or when we talk about things which are one of a kind.
So exact, certain, understandable, specific.
We know which ones exactly.
So in this particular situation it is clear
which object, which person, which thing we are talking about.
So the example, which I have already given you:
I have a cat. The cat is very fluffy.
You know what cat I'm talking about - it is my cat.
The cat is very fluffy. Do you need proof?
In this respect we also talk about 'the Sun'.
Because it is one of kind, there's just one Sun.
So about all planets and all stars which have names, we say 'the'.
However the words themselves - a planet and a star -
can be used with the indefinite article.
So we can say: 'The Sun is a star'.
So it is one of many stars.
It's a definition and in this case we should use the indefinite article.
A star, but the Sun.
The light. The light in the house or in the particular room,
in your room, in your house, that's why 'the light'.
The sky, the sea, the ground, the environment, the country.
The country in the meaning of the village.
For example, I would like to move to the country one day. Would you?
Moving on, we also say 'go to the bank'.
So we need this phrase, because we can say 'a bank'.
Is there a bank near here?
It is a very big bank.
But go to the bank, go to the post office,
go to the doctor, go to the dentist, go to the cinema, go to the theater.
And here sometime we do not mean the exact cinema or theater.
We could mean any cinema or theater.
But when we use this phrase 'go to the cinema',
we should say 'the' with all these words.
Do you have plans for today? Wanna hang out?
Let's go to the cinema!
Let's go to the theater!
Let's go to the post office?..
BTW 'the' is sometimes pronounced as 'ðiː'.
Usually it happens when the following word starts with a vowel sound.
That's why we say, for example, the apple.
I've eaten an apple. The apple was really tasty!
I would like some more of these.
The apple, the exact apple, which I have eaten.
We also use the definite article with the radio, with the word 'radio'.
So we say 'the radio', but we say television without any articles.
We can say 'the television', but in this case we mean the television set,
the exact box.
We also use the with nouns in singular in the general meaning.
However it doesn't sound right... But it can happen
when we think about a type of an animal in general
or a type of a machine.
Let's take a look at a couple of examples.
The elephant is one of the biggest animals.
I'm not talking about the exact elephant I see,
here I say in general - the elephant.
So I say 'elephants', I can say simply:
Elephants are the biggest animals.
But probably they aren't.
Anyway here it is possible to say 'the elephant'
in the meaning of all elephants together.
So we use 'the' plus a noun in singular
and the meaning is general.
The elephant is one of the biggest animals.
Who invented the computer?
Not this very computer on my desk,
but all computers, generally the computer.
Who invented the computer?
I can play the piano.
Not one particular piano, but any, the meaning in general.
A type of an instrument, animal, machine and so on.
As I have already pointed out, 'the' can be used with adjectives
alone, without nouns.
In this case it means a group of people.
So the young, I mean young people,
the poor, I mean poor people and so on.
So the young, the old, the elderly,
the poor, the rich, the sick
the homeless, the unemployed and so on.
A sample sentence:
In some countries the rich pay higher taxes.
What about your country?
Or 'After the accident we need to care for the injured.'
And finally we are going to talk about nationalities.
So we use 'the' with the nationality, which ends in -ch and -sh (tʃ, ʃ).
For example, the French, the English.
And we talk about all people of this nationality.
If we want to talk about one representative
we can't say 'a French', no.
We say: 'a Frenchman', 'an Englishwoman',
'an Englishman', 'a Frenchwoman'.
We use the with the ending -ese.
so with nationalities which have this ending.
So we can say 'the Japanese', meaning the whole group of people
well, who have this nationality.
But we can use the same word as a noun referring to just one person.
A Japanese, one.
The Swiss goes two ways also.
So I can say 'the Swiss' as a group of people,
so all Swiss people.
And we can say 'a Swiss' as one representative.
The word doesn't change, we don't need to add anything.
For others we do not need to use 'the',
we simple add the ending 's'.
So one Italian - Italians, one Russian - Russians.
That's it about the definite article for today.
However there is one more issue -
names with and without the definite article.
But I won't squeeze this issue in too,
it will be too much.
So if you want me to create a separate video, devoted to this topic,
names with 'the' and without it,
then write a comment, I'll consider it.
Anyway now we are going to talk about cases,
when we are not supposed to use any articles.
Not the definite article, not the indefinite article, so no article.
When do we skip articles?
There are several cases, first of all when we deal with
plural countable nouns in general.
So people. People in Russia are very nice. Not all of them.
Yellow dresses, for example, 'Yellow dresses are not for me.'
Newspapers. Do you read newspapers often?
Also we use no articles
when we talk about breakfast, lunch, dinner and supper - meals.
When we have breakfast, lunch and so on.
For example, 'Let's go grab lunch.' Or
We had dinner together.
But we use the indefinite articles, sorry.
But we use the indefinite article,
when there is an adjective before this word:
breakfast, lunch, dinner, supper.
So we say: 'We had a very nice dinner.'
Or simply: 'We had dinner.'
But if we add 'nice', 'very nice', we say 'a very nice dinner.'
When we deal with nouns after which we use a number,
we also are not supposed to use any articles.
So we simply say 'room 126', 'page 7',
platform 9 3/4, question 5, size 2.
For example, I have size 2.
Or, I don't know, open page 7.
Sometimes we do not use any articles with words like
school, prison, hospital, university, college and church.
And we usually do it, when we think about these places
as a general idea.
So we think of a general idea of these places
And what they are used for.
For example, I'm a pupil
and I go to school every day.
Or let's imagine some girl.
Mary goes to school every day, she's at school now.
so we think about the general idea of this place, school,
and what it is used for - for studying.
So pupils go there to study.
And that's why 'Mary goes to school everyday, she's at school'
no article is necessary.
But when we talk about her mother,
who does not go to school everyday to study,
we should say: 'Her mother has gone to the school.
She is at the school now.'
Because we do not think about this place
as a general idea and what it is used for - for studying.
So her mother doesn't go there for studying.
And that's why we say 'the school'.
The same goes for university.
I am a student, I go to university every day.
But if my parents decide to come across and drop in
and see how it looks like, then they go to the university.
College, church. If you go to church every weekend,
then you go to church. But if you are just a tourist,
then you go to the church.
We also say 'go to bed', 'be in bed'.
Set expressions, we need to remember them. Just memorize them.
Go to bed, be in bed, I'm in bed.
Go to word, be at work, start work, finish work.
But actually this is quite clear, because 'work' is uncountable.
But even though we think about our work, the exact work,
still we need to day 'go to work' and so on without any article.
That's a rule.
Go home, come home, arrive home, get home, be at home.
Also no article is necessary.
Go to sea and be at sea on a voyage.
Let's take a look at a couple of examples here.
Harry is a sailor, he is at sea now.
He is on a voyage.
But 'My mom is terrified of swimming in the sea.'
When we think about the sea in general, then 'the sea'.
So she's terrified of swimming in the sea.
Or I would like to move closer to the sea.
Why not? So anyway that's it.
Today we talked about cases when we are supposed to use the definite article 'the'.
And cases when we are not supposed to use any article at all.
I hope that now you have a better understanding
and some information sunk into your head.
So but that's it. If you have any questions feel free to write to me,
write comments, like, subscribe, continue studying English with me.
Happy English and Russian practice! Bye-bye!