hi everybody welcome to inkovid.com i'm
adam today's lesson is a grammar lesson
about everybody's favorite grammar point
articles more specifically the definite
article the now i'm joking about the
favorite part thing i know what we're
going to look at is one part or one
usage of the definite article there are
so many different rules and so many
different usages of the
articles the ah or an or no article so i
can't obviously look at everything i'm
going to look at one very specific
element or usage of the article i'm
going to look at how to use or when to
use or when not to use
the article the with abstract nouns
and then i'm also going to look at the
same or similar situation with singular
and plural
nouns that
basically encompass or they include a
whole collection of things and you'll
understand a bit more when i get to that
so we're going to start with an abstract
now now first of all what does this mean
what is an abstract noun
so an abstract noun has a few different
features okay different ways to
recognize that it is abstract first of
all it is intangible what does this mean
it means that it is it cannot be sensed
it cannot
be you can't use the five senses
to notice this thing you can't touch it
you can't see it you can't smell it you
can't taste it okay so you can't use any
of these
senses you can't hear it
but it's definitely still a real thing
okay
usually it's because this real thing is
just an idea or a concept basically it's
in your mind it's not a real thing
physically or that you can't touch it
but it's in your mind it's a real thing
and generally it is unquantifiable means
you can't measure it you can't count it
okay so some examples are love
happiness
society technology and education now
before you tell me well society is a
real thing or technology is a real
concrete thing it's not society is a
collection of people okay the people are
real society is an idea
technology you can talk about devices
you can talk about the internet you can
talk about smartphones you can talk
about computers but technology is just
all of these things together it's an
idea that
develops and evolves and changes
education you can talk about schools
students and teachers
but education itself is a process it's
an idea that we use to learn things and
develop things okay so all of these are
abstract nouns now when you're using
them in a sentence are you going to put
the in front of these or not
well
yes
that's your answer some cases yes you
will use the definite article in other
cases you will not okay so when you're
talking about these things in a general
idea you're just talking about love as
an idea as a concept you're not going to
use the article
if you're talking about love as a
qualified thing
then you will use the now what do i mean
by qualified if you make it very
specific to a very specific person or a
very specific situation
then you're making it
a single
thing that belongs to that situation or
that person okay let's look at an
example
the modern technology is changing the
society
now is this sentence using the correctly
or incorrectly
the answer is that it is incorrectly
you do not need the here
modern technology i'm not talking about
smartphones i'm not talking about
computers i'm talking about everything
that is part of technology it's just one
general abstract idea so i'm not i'm not
talking about anything specific within
that technology
is changing the society
well technically there are many
different types of societies there
there's like asian society and western
society and northern society and
southern society
so all of these things are different
aspects but when you're talking about
society as an idea
you don't need the article
modern technology is changing society
where when that you can get into into
specifics in the following sentences
okay let's look at another example
technology of the future
will change societies that embrace it
now do i need any articles here well
here we're talking about a specific
technology
technology 100 years from now will be
very different than technology today so
then you can look at it as two different
specific technologies so here
i need
the
the technology of the future now you'll
notice that i'm using of as some as a
way of qualifying the technology that
i'm talking about specifically so this
is one way of qualifying you can use of
or you can use a
defining adjective clause
that technology of the future will
change
societies that embrace it
but as soon as you have an identifying
adjective clause
then you need
a definite article because now i'm
talking about very specific societies
only the ones that embrace it then
they're
separately are the ones that don't
embrace it so now that i have a specific
group of societies then i'm talking
about a definite group and therefore i
need the
here
general idea no article here specific
and qualified
nouns
abstract nouns i do need the definite
article okay now
the same sort of uh
the same sort of thinking the same sort
of rules applies to
when we're talking about something in
general or we're talking about a whole
group of this something so let me give
you a couple more examples okay so now
we're going to look at a different
context for the same basic idea
lions are fierce animals
the lion is a fierce animal
both of these sentences are correct
if i talk about lines i'm talking about
all lines if i'm talking about the line
i'm talking about this specific type of
animal in this case
both work because here i have a plural
and i'm including all
all of them right
the lion though when we're talking about
like that the genus basically or the
family of animal i can say the dog
is the most domesticated animal for
example or dogs are the most
domesticated in this case it's okay
because if i say the lion
i can picture all lines if i say the dog
i can picture all dogs but
i probably wouldn't say the dog when i'm
talking about all dogs let me give you
an example why
whales are the largest sea mammals
okay a mammal is like a type of animal
like humans are mammals as well
so whales are and i'm using i'm talking
about all whales now here i can say the
whale is the largest when i'm talking
about this particular type of animal
why would i not
sorry let me
give you a little pointer
technically this is correct
but i would not ever write the whale
because
if you think about all the different
wheels what types of whales can you
think of
do you know what a humpback whale or a
blue whale is do you know what an orca
is okay orca is spelled like this
if you want to look that up
if you want to look them up look at this
blue whale look at a orca
these two whales are completely
different from each other
the blue whale is huge
it's like the biggest animal on the
earth
orcas are big
but not that big
orcas eat meat or they eat other fish i
should say they're they're hunters
blue whales eat
plankton like veg they're vegetarians so
they're very very different animals
although technically both are whales so
because there are such differences i
would just stick to whales without the
article
lions
generally there's not too many types
there's a mountain lion there's a
regular safari line like jungle line but
generally they're all the same and then
i can talk about the line as a general
term
about this specific animal
whales because there's so many i would
just stick
to the plural without the definite
article make it a little bit more
abstract even though i know what a whale
is
because it i know whales includes all of
them it's more abstract because i'm not
talking about any particular type of
whale okay
so
i know articles are a little bit tricky
but again it's all about practice and
remember the more you read
the more you'll see articles being used
correctly and the more you'll start to
have a feel for them to understand when
to use them when not to use them etc but
practice also and a little bit of an
explanation always helps so
go to ingrid.com right now you can take
a quiz to practice i'm going to give you
a whole bunch of different sentences and
see if you understand use the article or
don't use the article for each one and
of course don't forget you can ask me
questions in the comments section i'll
be happy to answer those for you
in the meantime if you like the video
please give me a like don't forget to
subscribe to my other channel or i
should mention one more thing sorry
before i go
there are a few other very good videos
about articles by other teachers on
invid don't forget there's a search box
on your invid.com website punch in the
word the and you'll see all the other
videos that are available
study those as well okay until then have
a lovely day bye