Mystery of a,an,the

[liu213]

Hai Lecturers,


kindly tell me when to use a,an,the,zero articles.Iam comiting this countless times.

Hoping the experienced and challenging reply will come to me.

Also tell me the best material for understanding ARTICLES.


Thank U to all in advance.

[riverkid]

Hai Lecturers,


kindly tell me when to use a,an,the,zero articles.Iam comiting this countless times.

Hoping the experienced and challenging reply will come to me.

Also tell me the best material for understanding ARTICLES.


Thank U to all in advance.

That's much too large a task, Liu to attempt in one posting. I'm sure that you know the general, normal neutral reasons for using/not using articles. Try writing some examples and posting them. We may then be able to see a pattern that has you committing "errors".

[liu213]

Hi riverkid,

First of all i would like to thank U for replying to my post.
Please tell me the normal/neutral reasons for knowing when to use articles and without articles

[whitemoon]

In general, a/an/the is used in countable nouns and no article is used in uncountable nouns. A/an is used in singular countable nouns and the is used in singular or plural countable nouns.But there are many exceptions in using them.
Here are some examples:
Hair is uncountable noun,( not use article before it)
But, there is a hair in my soup.
Similarly, water is uncountable noun, (not use article before it)
But, there are river water,sea water, rain water, underground water and so on, and these waters are cold.
I think this help you.

[liu213]

hai whitemoon,


Dear friend,thanks u r kindful towards me and helping. Shall i know when u started learning all the english grammar and when u joined this Forum.

[whitemoon]

hai whitemoon,


Dear friend,thanks u r kindful towards me and helping. Shall i know when u started learning all the english grammar (since 1997) and when u joined this Forum.(2006)

You can learn English grammar in the internet.In google search, you type what you want to know.For example "article", "formal english", "informal english" "English grammar" and so on. You will see many web pages. You can choose and study what you like. And you can learn it from English Grammar books.
An important point is to read, to write, to speak and to listen.
If you want to write,write.
If you want to read, read.
If you want to speak, speak.
If you want to listen, listen.
Have a good time.