{"id":427,"date":"2016-03-16T08:02:51","date_gmt":"2016-03-16T02:02:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/blogs\/global-academy\/?p=427"},"modified":"2022-05-03T11:58:54","modified_gmt":"2022-05-03T05:58:54","slug":"a-vs-the-vs-the-knowing-when-to-use-the-right-article","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/a-vs-the-vs-the-knowing-when-to-use-the-right-article\/","title":{"rendered":"A Vs. An Vs. The: Knowing When to Use the Right Article"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to linguists, the earlier forms of English did not have articles to accompany nouns as the necessary information concerning number and specificity were conveyed contextually or by other words that were placed somewhere else in the sentence. This system still exists in many languages of the world, such as Russian, Hindi, Chinese, and Japanese, but at some point other languages have evolved a set of words<\/a> to precede nouns to indicate quantifiable information.<\/p>\n

In English, the definite article \u201cthe\u201d originated from the word \u201cthat,\u201d which was one of the words that was used to specify the location of an object. English used to have three ways of indicating location: i) \u201cthis,\u201d right here; ii) \u201cthat,\u201d further off; and iii) \u201cyon,\u201d much further off. The word \u201cthat\u201d eventually evolved into the definite article \u201cthe,\u201d which indicates that a certain specific object is being referred to. The alternative is the indefinite article \u201ca\/an,\u201d which does not specify any particular object, but indicates one of any number of possibilities (a\/an was derived from the word \u201cone,\u201d and it can still have this meaning).<\/p>\n

Related:\u00a0Not quite comfortable with English language and grammar? Check out these useful resources now!<\/a><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The distinction between using a vs. an can be subtle, e.g., if you are assembling a distillation apparatus and you need a condenser you might tell your assistant, \u201cBring me the condenser.\u201d Because you used the definite article, this implies that want a certain specific condenser, perhaps the one he put in the drying oven a few hours earlier. However, if you say \u201cBring me a condenser,\u201d this implies that there are more than one condensers available in the lab and that it does not matter which condenser is brought to you by him.<\/p>\n

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Compared with many other languages, the usage of articles in English is pretty simple. While the German language has twelve articles, English has only three articles, and there is no difference in meaning between a<\/em> and an<\/em>\u2014\u201ca\u201d is used with a noun that begins with a consonant-like sound, whereas \u201can\u201d is used with a noun that begins with a vowel-like sound. So, the sound of the first letter in a word is important, and not the actual letter with which the word begins, e.g., before the phrase “NMR spectrum,” the indefinite article “an” will be used as the abbreviation NMR<\/em> is pronounced as \u201cen-em-are.\u201d So, article usage in English can be briefly explained as follows:<\/p>\n