[Grammar] articles

[determine]

Dear Teachers/ ESL fans,

I am looking for answers for the following questions about the articles. I have done a lot of research about it and still remain confused.

I would deeply appreciate your response.

- My daughter is learning to play the violin at her school. Q: why THE violin

-He Won a 1901 Nobel Prize. Q: Why A 1901

- The Sam Rayburn Building. Q: Why THE. We do not use THE before the name of buildings on campus e.g. Peet Hall. but how about this building?.

[2006]

Originally Posted by determine

dear teachers/ esl fans,

i am looking for answers for the following questions about the articles. I have done a lot of research about it and still remain confused.
the use of articles can be very confusing. Be patient and persistent, because there is no easy way to learn the correct use of articles.

in your sentence above, you don't need "the" because you are talking generally about english articles. But if you write '...about the articles below.', you would need "the" because then you would be talking about specific articles, the ones below.


i would deeply appreciate your response.

- my daughter is learning to play the violin at her school. Q: Why the violin
some people probably would omit that "the", but i think most native speakers would use "the". It certainly sounds better to me with "the".

-he won a 1901 nobel prize. Q: Why a 1901
firstly, it's "a", not 'the', because there wasn't only one nobel prize in 1901. If there were only one nobel prize in 1901, we would say 'he won the 1901 nobel prize.'
we would not just say 'he won 1901 nobel prize.'

- the sam rayburn building. Q: Why the. We do not use the before the name of buildings on campus e.g. Peet hall. But how about this building?.
it depends on the exact name. And when "building" is in the name, "the" is used. (maybe there are some exceptions, maybe not)

Ask more questions.

[competence]

Originally Posted by determine

Dear Teachers/ ESL fans,

I am looking for answers for the following questions about the articles. I have done a lot of research about it and still remain confused.

I would deeply appreciate your response.

- My daughter is learning to play the violin at her school. Q: why THE violin

-He Won a 1901 Nobel Prize. Q: Why A 1901

- The Sam Rayburn Building. Q: Why THE. We do not use THE before the name of buildings on campus e.g. Peet Hall. but how about this building?.

Hi Determine,

I'll help you with the easy one.

-He Won a 1901 Nobel Prize.

This doesn't sound natural in English. For 1901 to appear in this construction, it would have to be an integral part of "the Prize" (a collocation), or at least directly modifying prize (adjective or other type of determiner). 1901, however is simply the date when he won the prize and this temporal information should be separate from the noun - He won the Nobel Prize in 1901.

Please note that the structure of the example you gave us does exist in English (Frank has a 1967 Ford Mustang, and it's a really fast car), but here 1967 is an integral part of what kind of Mustang Frank has (the model), not when Frank got the Mustang (he could have bought it last year at an antique car show.)

I hope that helps.

Matthew Balson
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