Articles

Words a, an and the are known as articles.

We use 'a' before words that begin with consonants. (all the letters of the alphabet except the vowels.)

We use 'an' before words that begin with vowels (a, e, i, o, u).

We use 'the' before words that we have already spoken about.

• She has a dog.
• I ate an orange.
• I saw a baby. The baby was cute.

We have used the word 'the' in the third sentence as we have already spoken about the word 'baby'.

• We use 'the' when we talk or write about a thing that is only one of its kind e.g., river, mountain, ocean, sea, famous building, holy book, etc.
  • the Sun
  • the Ganga
  • the Himalayas
  • the Taj Mahal
  • the Geeta
  • the Pacific Ocean
• We do not use articles a, an and the before names of people. For example:
  • Tania
  • Rohit
  • Simran
• We usually do not use articles a, an, and the before names of villages, towns, cities or countries. For example :
  • Russia
  • India
  • Kolkata
  • Delhi