Welcome to Gateway to Grammar. This week we are looking at articles in English.

To stop the confusion at the start I don’t mean news or magazine articles, articles in English grammar are “a”, “an”, and “the”. There are some simple rules of what they are and when to use them.

Definitive article – “the”

The clue to this one is in the name “definitive”, there is only one of them. So you use this to describe an object, person, or idea where there is only one.

• “the dog” – you only have one dog.

• “the postman” – you only have one postman

• “the class we had on Monday” – you have classes every day, but only one on a Monday.

• “the ocean is beautiful” – you cannot separate the ocean into little bits of ocean, it is one big thing.

• “The sun is so hot today” – there is only one sun!

Non-definitive articles – “a” and “an”

• “a” and “an” are used to describe one thing out of a group of many. “a” is used when the noun you are using starts with a consonant (d, p, j, k, f, l, t etc.), and “an” is used when the noun you are using starts with a vowel (a, e, i, o, or u).

• “an amazing film” – there is more than one amazing film, this is one of them.

• “a horse at the farm” – there are a few horses at the farm, I am talking about one of them.

• “an intelligent lady” – there are many intelligent ladies, I am selecting one to talk about.

• “a blue fish” – one of the fish that are blue.

• "a flower on the cactus" - like in the picture above, the cactus has many flowers, and I am talking about one of them.

So there you go! Is it more simple than you thought? A and AN when it is one of many, THE when it is the only one.